Madam Speaker, before I talk about the budget implementation legislation, I must put on the record how upsetting it is to have the 38th time allocation motion moved by this government. It has done this 38 times. It used to be done once and literally a government would be gone at the next election because of it. Thirty-eight times. It is pretty hard to explain to our constituents that we were not given an opportunity to speak because this government used time allocation.
There is a lot of deception in this budget. Liberals are talking about the golden age, the financial problem being all taken care of and the great auditing that has been done. Yet the auditor general deplores the methods used by the finance minister.
We seem to have conveniently forgotten about the debt. In 1969 our debt was zero. In just three years it quickly went to $18 billion. In 1993 our debt was $489 billion. Today it is $583 billion. That is the thing we should be talking about. That is what the people say we should take care of. That is what is threatening our social safety net. That is what is threatening our health, education and pensions. That is what is going to hurt our future generations more than anything else. This government chooses to ignore that and begin more spending.
The tax and spend concept does not take into consideration what is happening in the world around us. We do not hear from the other side any mention at all of the potential Asian meltdown or what effect that might have on this country and how we should be so cautious to take care of that potential rainy day that might be down the road.
Look at a country like Indonesia with 200 million people with a 60% drop in its economy. People are unemployed. People are literally on the streets because they have lost their sources of income. Rice prices have gone up time after time. Japan has an overextended bank situation. In Korea people are literally bringing their gold to the government to try to get themselves out of this crisis.
This is the kind of thing that this government should be taking into consideration in putting forward its budget. It has absolutely no consideration about the world in which we live.
In B.C. we see the beginning of what will be potential implications for all businesses. What businesses need most is a drop in taxation so they can plan to counter what those potential dark clouds might be. What happens when cheap competitive products come on the market? What happens when there is less purchasing power in some of those Asian economies? That is going to effect the U.S. economy. When it gets a cold we get pneumonia. This government has totally abrogated its responsibilities in planning for that future.
Look at the figures regarding our debt. Our interest payment is $45 billion. That interest payment is equivalent to other figures that should be considered, close to $12 billion of federal money for health care, $14 billion for education, $22 billion for pensions. Our interest adds up to more than all those payments put together and yet this government totally ignores that debt and that interest payment.
In 1993 when a number of us came to this place the taxes brought in about $125 billion. By the year 2000 that figure will be $173 billion that this government is taking in. Some of that is due to growth but a great deal of that is due to increased taxation. We are falling behind other places in this world. All you have to do is go around to different places to realize that our economy is dropping. Our expendable income is dropping. We are not the same country we were 10 or 20 years ago. This government by its high taxes and spending and by the kind of budget that we just saw is doing nothing to deal with that problem.
Look at our dollar. Just try to travel using the Canadian dollar and see where we are now in the world's economy.
This government had choices. It could deal with the debt and the problems it brings. I could have dealt with the taxes and brought them down which would have meant jobs and a great increase in our well-being in this country. Or it could have dealt with spending. It chose the third option. It chose to increase spending and to forget about the debt and let it take care of itself by this mythical dream that so many of these governments have about growth taking care of the problems. It never has and it never will. By raising taxes as this government has done it has done nothing to help improve the job situation for our young people.
The Liberals had a choice and they chose to ignore the debt. They chose to keep taxes the highest in the G-7 countries and they chose to start spending.
If we start to look at some of that spending it is shocking: Canadian opportunities strategies, $4.6 billion in increased spending; the millennium fund, which we hear about over and over again, a couple of billion dollars; Canadian culture, $440 million. That is pretty scary when we think of what has been spent on things like, dare I mention, the flag issue, $24 million to hand out flags and we know what happened in this place. Are there savings we could make?
The patronage appointments that constantly go on with this government, the waste that occurs here, the total desire to maintain the status quo and not change anything in this place are why we are in so much trouble.
What does this mean to us as Canadians? The saddest part is that all of this inactivity regarding the debt, regarding the taxes, is going to affect the next generation. It is going to affect the kids and grand kids of most of the people in here, and even further than that. Those are the people who are going to have to finally face up to $583 billion, to 30 cents plus of every dollar going to interest payments. That is what a future government is going to have to face.
This government should be embarrassed by the budget that has been put forward and by all the bragging about the golden age, that we have our financial problems taken care of, that we have nothing more to worry about. People out there are not stupid. People out there know that is not true. Far and away the biggest number of people out there are saying take care of that debt. In surveys which have been done, and it does not matter whether they are done in Quebec or Alberta or B.C., people have said that.
This government chose not to listen. I believe that as Canadians digest what is in this budget there will be a reaction. That reaction will not be favourable to the finance minister or to this government.