Debates of March 24th, 1998

Budget Implementation Act, 1998

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the early part of her speech the member referred to the scandalous surplus the government was budgeting. The member will well know that the commitment made to Canadians was to balance the budget in the current fiscal year ended March 31, 1998, and to balance it again next year and the year after. This is the budget for the current year with a two year outlook.

The member will also know that the budget includes a contingency of some $3 billion. If the member looks closely she will also find very prudent assumptions with regard to the interest rate and growth estimates during the periods under which the estimates are being given.

It is very clear that if private sector estimates on interest rates and growth are achieved, which are much more positive than the government is assuming, surpluses will even be larger than projected.

The member must concede that if we are to pay down the debt, if we are to service the debt in an orderly way and get it down to sustainable levels, surpluses have to be achieved.

The member also knows that it is the intent of the government to use 50% of surpluses for important program spending like health, education and social programs. The other 50% will be used for debt reduction and for income tax relief for Canadians.

The member should temper the comments about scandalous surpluses in view of the fact that it is very important for us to have our debt being paid down so that we can continue to enjoy very competitive and lower interests rates which benefit all Canadians.

My question for her has to do with the millennium scholarship fund. She talked about the fund, as have many other members, as a subsidy for people already in the education system to lower tuition and to deal with student debt.

She has missed the point. It is important for us to remember that accessibility to post-secondary education was one of the primary reasons for the development of the millennium scholarship initiative. Many students would like to go on to post-secondary education but cannot afford to incur the costs of living and the costs of tuition. They are not prepared to enter into that obligation.

Some have said that the millennium scholarship fund would only benefit 7% of students. It could be zero per cent of existing students and another tranche of students who would not otherwise go to school.

Would the member not agree that the issue of accessibility is much more important to Canadians than subsidy?

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question in two parts. I must tell him that, if the government really wanted to increase accessibility, it would put money into the existing system that is under its control.

There is a student loans and scholarships act. The structure is already in place, and the people responsible for that program in each province are appointed by the government. These people are much better prepared to give out more scholarships in each province than if the government creates a whole new structure. To me, that does not make any sense, and I would even say that it is outrageous.

The structure already exists, and accessibility would be increased to a much greater extent if we invested money in that structure. The fact that these people are not public servants does not mean that this structure is an infrastructure and a bureaucracy. And who will control all that?

It seems to me that our colleagues from the Reform Party should be concerned about that also. The structure exists. Let us put money into that structure. There is no reason other than visibility to create a different structure. There is absolutely no other reason. Accessibility will be greater if we invest in the existing structure, and the money will go directly to the students.

The employment insurance fund is at a level where I would dare to say we will never be able to use it up, even with the most serious crisis imaginable. Therefore, we must make plans to make everybody pay, and not only small businesses and workers. Why is deficit reduction costing more to those people making $39,000 or less?

Proposals have been made to improve our tax system, but in this case, it is always the same who end up paying.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am sorry to interrupt the member, but her time has expired.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I shall be splitting my time. I rise today not in my parliamentary secretarial capacity but in my backbench enthusiastic capacity, if I can put it that way.

Our last budget was the first of the post-deficit era. It had a format which I found quite compelling. It was a format which basically dealt to some degree with debt reduction and to some degree with tax reduction. Rather than distributing a series of investments and expenditures across the system it picked one major theme. That theme, as we have been discussing, was the theme of access to higher education. At the centre of that theme was the millennium scholarship fund.

There are many other aspects and elements to this theme including the reduction of past student debt, the ability of mature students with children to get some help with child care, and the ability of people in the future to invest in the well-being of their children and their grandchildren. We took a subject and we swarmed it. We really spent a lot of time on the whole access issue.

If this is the new format for doing budgets in the post-deficit era, what will be the major theme of next year's budget? There are compelling alternatives. There are many who would argue for a health care budget. There are others who would argue for a global warming budget.

Since we have to prepare now for next year, let me advance a third possibility which will feed in as well to a health budget. At the heart of next year's budget we should place young children, specifically children under the age of six. We should attempt to use next year's budget to achieve part 1 of the national children's agenda which is high on the list of provincial and federal governments in order to ensure that all our children, wherever they live in the country, have access not to higher education but to kindergarten in the best state of readiness we can create.

If a theme or name for this project is needed, it could be called the success by six millennium project. I see it as very much a continuation of this year's budget, a budget which focused on young Canadians as they left the formal school system and headed off toward post-secondary education.

This time we are asking how we can make sure young Canadians as they enter the educational system, notably in kindergarten, are as ready and well prepared as we can make them. These two form a complementarity, a pair of bookends.

Why pick this group of Canadians for next year's budget? What is the compelling argument, need or urgency? According to statistics it is estimated that up to 25% of all Canadian children live in poverty. We have attempted to deal with that through the national child benefit system. That is not all. Our children have other problems. It is estimated that about 20% of Canadian children between the ages of 4 and 11 have serious emotional and behavioural disorders.

We know from question period the concern of many members of the House over what happens to those children when they become older, when they become potentially criminal.

We know we have problems. We know that 5.7% of the population of this country is born under an acceptable birth weight and because of that two-thirds of all infant mortalities occur in that group. We have problems with not just the zero to six population, but the pre-zero, the pre-natal group as well.

If I were to say what the mission statement, the central theme, of next year's budget should be, it would be simply to ensure that every child in Canada is ready to learn upon entrance to the formal school system.

The challenge is huge because, as with all modern problems, they do not fall into old silos. There are at least six federal departments which deal in one way or another with children, whether it is the Ministry of Health, Human Resources Development or the Solicitor General's department, which has to deal with the product of children who have not been made ready for school or for life.

The justice minister has to deal with crime prevention and appropriate behaviour can best be taught between the years of zero and six.

Then we have the department of Indian affairs. We know that children among our aboriginal populations are severely at risk.

Finally we have the Minister of Finance, who allows all of these potential reforms to go ahead.

We have to, within our own government, get our act together.

It is also complicated because in our Constitution we do not say who is responsible for young children before they hit the school system.

We know intuitively that it is the primary responsibility of their families, but it is also the responsibility of communities and, in some cases, social agencies and not for profit organizations, along with municipalities, the provinces and the federal government itself.

We cannot afford to wait until we delineate who is precisely in charge of what. We just have to admit that it is a huge challenge for this country and we all have to work on it together.

What we need to do is to have the notion of projet de société, as we say in French, a national project, something which rallies us around a great cause that cannot otherwise be achieved.

We know about national projects. We have done them in the past, whether it was building a railway or creating the health care system. We understand that the outstanding characteristic is that this is a job which is so big there is not one part of society which can do this by itself.

The role of the federal government is not to dictate what the answers are. The role of the federal government is to bring us all together for the good of all to undertake a mighty task, which is to make sure that our children are ready for school.

We know from literature the way in which children specifically, and human beings in general, develop. The most crucial period for the development of the brain and social behavioural patterns is in the early years.

We know if children can be given coping skills that will be the greatest single denominator of adult health status of anything we can do. We know it is linked to the health care system because it is linked to the prevention system.

We know that crime finds its origin most clearly in things that go wrong before the age of six. If we know that, why would we not do ourselves a collective favour by taking on this task, huge as it is?

How do we start? The way we start is by actually trying to keep score. We do not know how our population is on a community basis. I have tried to find out in my own part of Toronto, East York, east Toronto, what we are doing for children from zero to six.

After the birth weight of all children is measured, which is taken at the hospital, there is no way of finding out much until they actually hit the school system.

When they hit the school system there is no way of finding out just how well prepared they are. We do not measure that. Until we start keeping score, we are not going to be able to change the collective social institutions, whether it is child care, whether it is screening for risk, whether it is parenting courses, until we know how we are doing.

The readiness to learn measure has to be at the heart of our “success by six” program. Without measurement, the rest is just guessing.

The measure not only passes a judgment on all of the social institutions in a community which have contributed to that child's state, but it also allows the school system to understand what deficiencies have to be attended to when the child enters school. If that is done the child will not be burdened with inabilities. If we attend to those soon, the child can get on with it and not fall further and further behind.

This is a tremendous challenge. We have already started to do something about it. The federal government in North York, which is part of my community, has started to finance a research project on readiness to learn. That research project involves all sorts of community institutions, including the health care system, schools and social agencies so that they are not simply measuring how children do when they enter kindergarten, they are actually going to start changing the way in which they interact with each other so that children will have a seamless web of services to support them.

The readiness to learn project, which we promised in our second red book and which we promised as well in the Speech from the Throne, is only the beginning. Coming out of that we can then work collectively. I emphasize that this cannot be dictated by the federal government. The federal government has to pull people together on a community basis to work with children.

Starting with that measure we will then be in a much stronger position to fill in the gaps at the community level and at the national level which impede the full human development of our children.

A number of measures are in place now, tools which we might want to make the equivalent of the millennium scholarship fund. We have, for example, the community action program for children which is already in place. That program is a platform, if you like, of 12 agreements between the provinces and the territories and the federal government. It has 550 communities organizing themselves in a holistic fashion around the zero to six population, particularly children at risk. It will allow for a measurement of success to take place which we might wish to convert to a readiness to learn measure.

What we probably need is to multiply that example by about tenfold, but understanding—

[The Deputy Speaker]

I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.

[Maurice Godin, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the government member. He started off by telling us about this budget that his party has balanced and about the debt and taxes in particular, which he would have liked to start reducing.

But for the time being, the government will be focusing mainly on the millennium scholarships. The hon. member addressed great national projects in areas like rail transportation, although I personally do not think it was a good example, especially since the $580 billion debt was accumulated in the past because of these great national projects.

Regarding the millennium scholarships, we know full well that the cost of education is much lower in Quebec than in the rest of Canada, which means that the student debt level is much lower. Instead of trying to bring costs down outside Quebec, they are trying to implement a program that will just add to current government expenditures.

I wonder how the government will ever manage to bring the debt down, if it keeps creating new programs in areas that fall under provincial jurisdiction anyway.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the debt, because there are two kinds of debts. There is the tax liability, of course. But more importantly there is a human debt, the social debt.

For some time now, we have watched our human capital deteriorate. This is now clearly evident in the province of Quebec, Montreal in particular. When studies are done on the condition of children in Montreal, particularly in downtown Montreal, everyone acknowledges that there are problems.

The only way to deal with this human debt, which exists almost everywhere in the country, but particularly in economically deteriorated regions, is to work together, not to get embroiled in constitutional battles, but rather to set an objective that is valid for all, since we all value the place children hold in our society.

I recognize that Quebec is often ahead of the rest of Canada as far as young children are concerned. Quebec has made enormous strides as far as daycare and other things are concerned. To me, the strength of federation is precisely the ability to acknowledge avant-garde models, such as are seen in Quebec, and to follow their example, if I may put it that way, like we did 30 years ago in the health care field, when Saskatchewan played the lead role.

Now it is up to all of us as Canadians to join forces in nation-wide societal projects. We must begin with our children.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member mentioned a theme for this particular budget and I know he is also very interested in other areas. I wonder if the member might like to suggest where we go from here with the millennium scholarship fund and the education plan. Possibly he has some insight for us on how we can build on what we started.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

As I have said, Mr. Speaker, if we take next year's theme to be readiness to learn and use that to mobilize all of our resources, whether they are provincial, community based or whether they are with families, rather than simply imposing something—the federal government telling Canadians what to do—then we have a chance to change our thinking as a society about the crucial importance of the early years of development. That is the way we are going to make social progress in this country.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I join the budget debate. This debate comes at a very interesting time in our country's history, inasmuch as all of our citizens know we are approaching the end of a millennium and the beginning of a new one.

It is heartening for all of us, even for our friends across the way, to know that this government has been able to put the finances of the country on such a firm footing that we are now the envy of countries like Japan, who only wish they could find themselves in the situation we now find ourselves in.

Imagine having inherited an annual deficit of $42 billion. In a short period of time, from 1993 to February 1998, this government has been able to balance the books, to eliminate the deficit and to give all Canadians, either as private citizens or as business people, a sense of renewed confidence, a renewed vision for all, as we end this millennium and prepare for a new one.

I have just a word about my riding because it will help put into context some of my comments. My riding of Algoma—Manitoulin, a northern Ontario riding, is roughly the size of New Brunswick. It contains a beautiful major part of the Boreal forest, sections of the Great Lakes of Huron and Superior, numerous First Nations communities and communities that were founded either as railway towns, forestry towns or mining towns which today have, for a number of reasons, evolved into renewed communities, communities that hope for great things for themselves and for young people. While I will acknowledge there are challenges ahead, there will always be challenges. It is incumbent on us as elected representatives and as a government to respond to our local leaders and our citizens with vigour, vision and energy.

As I travelled throughout my large riding, I go into these communities with a sense of pride knowing this government has been a caring government. This is a government which has listened to the voters and has, as its first priority, getting our finances in order. We know that ensuring the sustainability of our social programs, our health care system, our pension system depends on having a strong financial base. To the credit of the Prime Minister and the finance minister this has been done in a very careful and caring way.

I am the chairman of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations and it is our intention, as an all party committee, to pursue a study done in the last Parliament called think rural. It was very important in this last budget, as in previous budgets, that rural Canada receive the attention it deserves.

The federal development agency in northern Ontario called FedNor was due to expire next March but has been renewed at an annual funding of $20 million a year indefinitely. This program which is an important program for economic development in northern Ontario can now depend on long term funding. Its programs can now become more responsive to the needs of business and communities.

In addition, the Canadian rural partnership which is a $20 million program will spend $5 million a year over the next few years. It will be designed to allow local non-profit groups, municipalities and their leaders to come up with new and innovative ways to make sure rural Canada has the best and every opportunity to stay up with our urban neighbours.

It is all too often the case but a fact of economics that with the recovery we are seeing in our economy it is natural that our urban areas feel it first. We are seeing tremendous progress when it comes to job creation. The last report which indicated an 8.6% unemployment rate is the lowest we have seen in decades. I will grant that it is not low enough but I believe we are going to see that rate of unemployment drop continually over the months and years ahead.

I intend to speak with local leaders about the Canadian rural partnership initiative and that will give us an opportunity to pilot some projects in our rural areas which will help prepare our rural communities for the next millennium. The economic growth we are seeing in our urban areas will also, as it should, include our rural areas. We are seeing that happen.

Much depends on initiatives taken at the local level, be it municipal leaders or business leaders. It is incumbent on the government not to be out telling local communities what they should do but rather to listen to ideas and where appropriate help them get their ideas off the ground.

Some would argue that government has absolutely no place when it comes to being involved with either the private sector or local government but I disagree strongly. The federal government with its national vision can and should certainly be there to partner with local communities.

Take for example the long term vision of this government for pharmacare or home care. A budget of $150 million has been set aside for local areas to create and experiment with new ideas to deliver pharmacare or home care. This is part of a national evolution toward universal coverage of pharmacare and home care. This is very important to me. It is one thing for a federal government to have a vision, but it has to be prepared to partner with communities and local leaders who must deliver that vision at the end of the day to the grassroots level.

I believe it is wrong to think the federal government is limited to international and military affairs and so on. We have a very important place at the local level, especially as we see the provinces moving away from engagement with local leaders and their communities. We have seen this happen with Ontario.

When it comes to rural Canada, the government has committed to making sure through the Canada access program, CAP, and SchoolNet that all our communities, their schools and libraries are hooked up to cyberspace through the Internet. In the very near term we will see that every community is hooked up.

In addition to the specific initiatives for rural Canada such as FedNor, the Canadian rural partnership initiative, SchoolNet and CAP, a government that can keep interest rates and inflation down, that can keep our exchange rate with the U.S. in particular at a stable state is a government that is helping not only urban Canada but rural Canada. A rising tide raises all boats. It is unrealistic to expect that rural Canada can do well if our cities are not doing well or that our cities can do well if our rural areas are not doing well.

We are all in this together. Whether it is improving the literacy rate of Canadians, whether it is ensuring that our pension programs are secure for the future, which we have done, whether it is providing important tax cuts to selected taxpayers at the low and middle incomes levels, whatever the initiative, I believe this government has put people first. We are prepared to listen. My constituents can count on me to listen to them.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the speech by the member opposite.

I am surprised at his support for the federal government's centralizing attitude. In the last part of his speech, he said that the government must listen to municipalities, but must intervene. It must listen to the private sector, but must intervene.

He also spoke of great national visions and of national criteria. I wonder if he really believes in the federal system. Let us not forget that the federal government did not create the provinces. It was the other way around. In creating the federal government, the provinces delegated powers and jurisdictions. The federal government must honour its creators—the provinces, that is—and their requests for jurisdiction. It must stay within the limits of the powers granted it.

The member spoke of health and national standards, and I understand that he was speaking of them in terms of better service to the public or assistance to the disadvantaged.

I understand perfectly well that the federal government must help all Canadians to achieve a certain equality, a certain fairness in health care and education, but it could show respect for provincial jurisdictions in so doing.

I could take the example of the millennium scholarships. According to the most recent surveys, 80% of the public in Quebec is against having these scholarships administered by the federal government. All university presidents in Quebec are opposed to these scholarships. The entire education system as well as the two main political parties, the Liberal Party of Quebec and the Parti Québécois, are against them. And what does the federal government say? It says it will go ahead anyway.

If it really wants to help the education sector, why—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin now has the floor.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for Richelieu because it gives me an opportunity to clarify something.

When I said I believe strongly in the importance of the federal government, because of its national view, to be engaged with individual Canadians and their communities, this does not mean the provinces do not have a very strong and important place in that partnership.

As the member suggested, it was an evolution of a federal government through the coming together of the provinces over the generations. However, the federal government was created for a purpose. The provinces clearly saw that it was important to have a national view.

I will take issue with the millennium fund. This fund is in no way interference with the provincial jurisdictions over education. The millennium fund will put much needed money in the hands of students who will themselves choose to apply to a particular college or university for their—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I am sorry, but we need to get one more question in on this.

[Darrel Stinson, Reform, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member talking about the balanced budget and taking accolades for the government on that score.

I would like to remind the member that most of this budget was done on the backs of the taxpayers. In the basic rural community that I come from, I have had a number of phone calls with regard to the high taxation level in Canada under both the provincial and federal governments. As a matter of fact, B.C. is the highest taxed part of North America. A large percentage of that is right from the federal government.

I would like to ask the member if he has had any phone calls or questions with regard to the high taxation.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's question. I have a high regard for his opinion.

Certainly over the period of 1993 until now I have had a couple of questions on taxation, no question about that. However, it certainly is not the issue that he thinks it is which is the one in his riding in B.C. He may want to speak to the B.C. government about that because the rate of federal taxation in Ontario is the same as it is in British Columbia.

He suggests that our tax rates are the highest in the industrialized world or something along those lines. I understand, when we factor in our universal medicare, payroll taxes, sales taxes and so on, we are in the middle of the pack when it comes to the industrialized nations.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Unfortunately the hon. member's time has expired.

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Frontenac-Mégantic, Diseased sheep; the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, Health; the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas, APEC summit; the hon. member for Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, The environment.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to say a few words on the budget bill which is before the House. My comments will be fairly brief.

Like every other Canadian, I am pleased that we now have the first budget in 29 years that is balanced from a fiscal point of view. I do of course question some of the methods that were used to balance that budget. I am sure the member who has just spoken is also concerned about the tremendous cutback in social programs to give but one example. He comes from northern Ontario and I am sure that those cutbacks have hit very hard.

In terms of the transfers in education and health to the provinces, his good friend the premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, of course is cutting back radically and severely all throughout northern Ontario. That affects the constituents of my friend from Algoma who has just taken his seat in the House. I am sure he too is concerned about some of the methods that are used to cut back on social programs in this country to achieve a fiscally balanced budget.

I am also concerned about some of the other directions we are going in our society. I want to say a few words about that. I remember growing up in this country and seeing the evolution of activism in terms of the government, when we had very activist governments at the provincial and the federal levels. The Pearson days and the Trudeau days. I can go on to more recent times and talk about provincial governments in Alberta under the premiership of Peter Lougheed. That government was very activist in terms of programs for ordinary people.

That seems to have come to an end. Activism for the welfare state and social programs seems to have come to an end. We have been told by neoconservatives it is very passé and that there is not really a role for governments today. That type of activism is gone.

Thinking about it more and more, there is a certain kind of government activism that is very much alive and kicking, not just in this country but around the world. It is not an activism that creates a welfare state in terms of social programs and more equality for ordinary people. It is the kind of activism that creates a welfare state for the large multinational corporations and creates what might be called the corporate welfare bums of the world.

I think here of the trade deals that governments have negotiated on behalf of capital. The World Trade Organization, the WTO. The free trade agreement with the United States. NAFTA which brings in Mexico. I also think of the multilateral agreement on investment, the MAI. All these things are charters. I guess one could say they are charters for investment or charters for capital, or charters for business in this country.

It is the activism of governments around the world that has provided this kind of strong governmental support for capital in the world. We also see all kinds of other examples where there still is government activism for large corporations but not for people.

Investment houses and bankers around the world are very much in favour of strong central banks that are regulated, that can set interest rates and make all kinds of monetary decisions that are extremely important. They are very much in favour of these banks that are removed from political control, that are almost acting as independent agencies.

This new kind of government activism is not for ordinary people, it is for capital and it is much less democratic. It is also international in nature. That is the kind of evolution we have been seeing. The government is very much part of that.

I remember the campaign in 1993 when the now Prime Minister crossed the country saying “Elect me as Prime Minister and I will tear up NAFTA, I will negotiate NAFTA”. He was saying the free trade agreement was not very good. Back in 1988 the then leader of the Liberal Party was talking about tearing up the trade deal. What has happened to that Liberal Party?

The member from Algoma was here in those days working as a valuable assistant to a friend of mine who was his predecessor. He was very involved in those days in fighting the NAFTA deal and fighting the free trade deal with the United States. He was concerned about the giving up of our sovereignty. But all of a sudden that short distance across the aisle which is two sword lengths away has completely changed the orientation of the Liberal Party. It has taken on the mantle of Brian Mulroney and the Conservative Party. That is what has happened to the Liberal Party across the way.

I saw Mulroney on television a few months ago. He said he was quite pleased with the Liberal government across the way. He said “After all, it has implemented and carried on with most of my policies”. I know you agree with that, Mr. Speaker. The Liberals are sitting back there smiling. They are in total agreement with this.

There is nothing wrong with the Liberals doing that if they had been honest with the electorate beforehand and told the people “We think Brian Mulroney is doing the right thing. We think he is doing a courageous thing. He is a fantastic prime minister in terms of his policies. Elect us and we will do exactly the same thing and we will do it faster than the Brian Mulroney government can do it”. That is exactly what has happened.

The GST is another policy. I remember the Liberals talking about getting rid of the GST, killing the GST. The now Minister of Canadian Heritage was jumping over desks in a committee room going after Conservative ministers for bringing in the terrible GST and talking about the trade deals, that it was a horrible thing that was happening in our country.

Here we are a few short years later. These same Liberals who are now hanging their heads in shame across the way are those who are supporting these Mulroney policies and perpetrating those Mulroney policies on the people of this country.

The old saying is that the more things change, the more they remain the same. All we have are different personalities and in many ways a government now that is more conservative than the Brian Mulroney government of 1984 to 1993. Many of the things that the Liberals are now doing the Mulroney government could not have done politically. The Liberals in opposition at that time would have risen in the House and organized an opposition that would have prevented the government from acting.

This is the kind of trend which is happening. We see this trend toward more and more government activism for the large corporations and large capital in this country at the expense of many small business people. We see this trend toward activism for large corporations in the way they are starting to structure some of their programs.

An example is the Foundation for Innovation. It is handing out some $800 million worth of grants to companies for research and development and for innovative projects. Again, who is doing that? A board of unelected business people is making the determination as to who gets that money.

There is the millennium fund. Again a board primarily of business people will be determining who gets the $2.5 billion.

There are the changes to the Canada pension plan and the setting up of an independent investment arm of that pension plan that will soon have assets of over $100 million. Guess who will be on the board? Again, members of the big business community will make determinations about those investments. Once again it is activism on behalf of large corporations in this country and around the world. That is what is happening in Canada.

We are not seeing that same kind of activism when it comes to ordinary people. We have Liberals across the way who used to be progressive. The member from Toronto used to be very progressive at one time. But I do not see him up in the House talking about tax fairness for example and looking at a Tobin tax on international currency transactions. Those are the things the Liberals used to talk about in their opposition days.

The Tobin tax is named after James Tobin, an economist who won a Nobel prize. He had an idea that we should have a small tax on international currency transactions. This should be discussed among the leaders of the G-7 or the OECD. Yet where is our Minister of Finance and where is our Prime Minister in terms of leadership, in terms of trying to bring about this kind of a financial transaction?

We are seeing a real evolution in the world. Maybe for the first time we can do some of these progressive things. The Europeans have finally thrown off this yoke of conservatism, of Thatcherism and Reaganism. They have elected social democratic governments, like Tony Blair in Great Britain and Lionel Jospin in France.

Lionel Jospin is the long-time leader of the Socialist Party in France.

He is not a liberal; he is a democratic socialist leader. There is a social democratic alliance in Italy. I predict in September of this year for the first time in 17 years that great friend of the Liberal Party, Chancellor Kohl in Germany is going to lose to a social democrat.

For the first time in European history there will be social democratic governments in the four largest countries in Europe, all of them with 60 million people or more. Those progressive governments are being elected in Europe.

I say to the government across the way, why does it not take the initiative now and start talking with our allies around the world about an international tax on currency speculation and currency transactions, the Tobin tax. That is a way of getting billions of dollars around the world to distribute to poor people, to create more equality, to look after disasters like the one in Chernobyl, or big floods, and to help take pressure off some of our social programs.

That is something we can do, but we can only do that internationally. There has been a great change in the world in the last 10 or 15 years. The power of the nation state is diminishing very quickly. In its place are international agreements which are basically there for capital and for large investors.

The same kind of government activism and government intervention that is creating a haven or a charter for international capital should be done in terms of creating a covenant for people and a covenant for social programs that is international as well. We can do that if we have the political will and the political determination.

We can do it in terms of a minimum standard for social programs around the world and in terms of labour standards and in terms of environmental standards. We can do it on the revenue side by looking at the possibility of a Tobin tax which is a tax on international currency transactions. These are the kinds of things we could do if we had a more progressive government that was interested in intervention and activism and a positive role on behalf of ordinary people and not just on behalf of its friends like Conrad Black and the huge investors in the multinational corporations around the world.

That is the main point I wanted to make. We now have in our country a balanced budget. We are now going to be turning another leaf. We are now going to be opening another chapter of the book of Canadian history. What we have had in the last few years is the transformation of the Liberal Party of Canada into the great Conservative Party of Canada in terms of the legacy of Brian Mulroney and his Conservative government.

The books are now balanced. There was a Liberal convention in the city just last weekend. Rank and file Liberal delegates are concerned about the right wing conservative direction of the government across the way. They want to make health care a priority. They are concerned about the MAI. They are concerned about the proposed merger of two of our three largest banks. They are concerned about this right wing drift of the Liberal Party.

I am sure there are Liberal backbenchers who feel the same way. Why do they not get up in this House and start talking about a progressive agenda for the people of the country? An activist government once again that will be an activist government for ordinary people and not just an activist government for multinational corporations.

I am interested to see whether or not Liberals across the way might have some comments or questions and whether or not they will have the courage to question the leadership of the Prime Minister who all of a sudden has changed from red to blue and is dressed in Conservative clothing.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my friend's comments. I have a lot of time for the member but when it is all said and done he is still a member of the NDP which is no reflection on his character at all.

The member made mention of the Liberal convention this past weekend. I was there as one would expect. It was a wonderful convention, probably one of the best national conventions on record of any party.

It clearly demonstrates again that the Liberal Party, unlike other parties represented in this House, takes policy initiatives seriously in co-operation with Liberal members from coast to coast. It is a very positive creative process. There is no question in my mind that the Prime Minister, the cabinet and the government do listen. I am not sure if the hon. member was at our convention. He may have been, I do not know.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

No.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin, ON]

He says no. If he had been there, he would have felt much different about it than his comments would indicate.

The Liberal Party because it represents the vast majority of Canadians in its thinking I suppose takes the best of socialist ideas and the best of conservative ideas and brings those better ideas together in a moderate balanced approach to governing this country.

I take issue with the NDP attitude toward corporations. I am in favour of fair and appropriate taxation for corporations, including banks. But the NDP have this idea or socialists in general have this idea that corporations are people. They are not people. Corporations are owned by shareholders. Those shareholders are average Canadians, their pension funds, and in many cases union pension funds. Corporations are owned by people. Those same people are voters. They are smart enough to know that if we tax a corporation to death, then of course the jobs will be lost that go with that corporation. There has to be a balance. We cannot have a taxation regime that moves jobs out of the country.

If it is all about creating jobs for our citizens I would put the record of this government in front of any person anywhere in the world with pride. We are not there yet. I will concede that. But we are on a track in this country that is the envy of the world. I would take our prospects over the prospects of any other nation for the months and years ahead.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

I am not sure what the question was, Mr. Speaker. I was interested in whether the member might have a comment on the really radical change in terms of the conservative direction of this government. Most commentators have said this government is continuing on with the policies of Brian Mulroney: GST, trade deals, deregulation, privatization and on and on. Those are many of things the Liberals campaigned against in 1993, campaigned against in 1988 and yet those policies are the continuity of Brian Mulroney.

I saw him, as I said, on television a while ago saying that he is very pleased that his policies have been endorsed by the present government. They have been carried on.

What I am saying now is we have a balanced budget in this country. It is time again to have a government that is more activist on behalf of ordinary people and more progressive on behalf of ordinary people. The government has not hestitated to be activist on behalf of capital, in terms of the trade deals, in terms of the World Trade Organization, in terms of the banking system, the regulation of banks and so on in this country. So why not be activist on behalf of ordinary people?

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member across the way keeps referring to the fact that we are following on with the Tory policies. I just want to remind the member of the 1989 budget and the fact that the Tories increased the manufacturers sales tax and excise taxes, increased surtaxes, increased high income surtaxes, brought in large corporation capital taxes. That is the Tory policy. That is not the Liberal policy.

But let me go on and address a couple of the points that the hon. member made when he talked about the millennium fund being stacked with CEOs and business people in this country. If the hon. member checked there will be a student on that board. There will also be university presidents. I am sure he will find a few friends of the NDP from the university presidents. If he cannot, I suggest that is his problem.

We have struck a balance to ensure that those individuals who are going to partake in deciding where that $2.5 billion is spent are really a reflection of Canadians.

On the CPP as well, where the member talks about it being stacked by CEOs, every province of this country provided input into who would be part of that board.

He mentioned Tony Blair. How does he respond to Tony Blair when he said in his campaign that the Labour Party is committed to strict control of government borrowing and lives by the pledge that sound public finances are essential to long term stability?. He went on to say spending is not the solution to every problem. It is how the money is spent that counts.

If we put that to the test this government has met the test and has certainly been a reflection of what Canadians have been telling us. We have taken a balanced approach. We will continue to take that balanced approach. We continue to deal with the finances and we are now investing in Canadian priorities irrespective of what the hon. member says.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the member knows his political history very well, but I certainly would agree 100% with what Tony Blair has said. That has been the whole legacy of the Government of Saskatchewan for example. If we go back to 1944 in Saskatchewan when Tommy Douglas was elected, Saskatchewan always had a balanced budget. There was always a fiscal responsibility there. It is the same thing in the 11 years of Allan Blakeney. With the current government of Roy Romanow Saskatchewan was the first province in modern times to balance its budget. Saskatchewan also has the second lowest per capita spending in terms of government costs in Canada.

We have come from a legacy in our party of being very responsible with taxpayer money. It has been Conservatives over the years—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh.