Debates of March 25th, 1998

Motions For Papers

[The Deputy Speaker]

Under the circumstances, I do not know what else we can do. Members can ask to have them transferred for debate, otherwise they stand.

Budget Implementation Act, 1998

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That in relation to Bill C-36, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 24, 1998, not more than two further sitting days shall be allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the said bill and, fifteen minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government business on the second day allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

[John Nunziata, Independent, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The net effect of the motion put forward by the House leader is to invoke closure, something that the hon. member opposed when he was a member of the opposition. This is pure hypocrisy.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I do not hear any point of order coming from the hon. member on that point. I think he may wish to debate the merits of the motion but that is not for a point of order.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Deputy Speaker]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Division No. 112

[The Deputy Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

[Paddy Torsney, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I rise, on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know sometimes we all have other duties but I think you will notice that the member for Fundy—Royal actually left his chair and the member for St. John's West left the Chamber completely during that vote. I am not sure that either of their votes should count.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The Chair is not certain that their votes should count either, but in the circumstances given the outcome, I think we will leave the vote undisturbed. Hon. members may have noticed that I was indicating that members did have to remain in the House at the end of the vote for the yeas and that I was administering appropriate chastisement. I think that in these circumstances hon. members will seek to remain in the House, in compliance with the rules, during a vote and we will leave it at that.

The House resumed from March 24 consideration of the motion that Bill C-36, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 24, 1998, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Resuming debate. When the debate was interrupted on this bill, the hon. member for Markham had the floor. He has three minutes remaining in his speech.

[Jim Jones, Progressive Conservative, Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the important issues that was not acknowledged in this budget by the federal government was the millennium bug, commonly known as the year 2000 problem.

The year 2000 is less than 20 months away and there was no mention of its repercussions by the Minister of Finance in his budget. No attention was given to the significant cost and consequences this problem will have on Canadian businesses. No mention was made as to the aspirations of this government in combating the huge implications of this issue.

In the report by the Task Force Year 2000 released in February this year, it was recommended that the federal government introduce revenue neutral tax incentives, measures that focus primarily on small and medium size enterprises. It recommended that there be no delay in implementing this. The Minister of Finance ignored this recommendation and did nothing for small business enterprises in his budget respecting the year 2000 problem.

The PC Party feels that we urgently need to immediately implement formal action using the tax incentive levers available. The minister has missed his chance to make this incentive available to businesses at the earliest possible time. Now businesses may struggle on their own to attack this inevitable deadline of the next millennium with no monetary or tax relief from the Liberal government.

In conclusion, the 1998 budget may go down in history for being the first balanced budget in 28 years. However it will not be a budget that is to be remembered by Canadians as the budget that helped Canadians get ahead in life. The 1998 budget should have included initiatives to put money back into the pockets of the taxpayers. The 1998 budget should have introduced policy decisions that would have provided relief to small businesses, tax relief to Canadians, lowered the federal debt level and restored dollars to the provinces for health care, education and social assistance.

As I have indicated, the 1998 federal budget does little in the way of providing for taxpaying Canadians. We are not content to see the government spend away their sacrifices. We want to see more money and more jobs for Canadians. We must keep young Canadians in Canada and give them the opportunity their parents have had. It is crucial that we solve the alarming trend that has come to be known as the Canadian brain drain.

Taxes are still too high in this country. They penalize initiative. Taxes slow investment, investment that creates jobs. The result is that investment is being driven outside Canada. We also know that taxes encourage highly skilled entrepreneurial Canadians to seek their futures in other countries.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was speaking about small business. I would like the hon. member to recognize that small business benefits from balanced budgets, low interest rates and low inflation. The tax relief which was provided in this last budget took 400,000 Canadians off the tax rolls. It provided relief to 90% of Canadian taxpayers.

The hon. member talked about the debt level. The hon. member only has to read the budget to understand that this budget contains measures that will actually decrease the value of the budget and keep the debt to GDP ratio on a continued downward track, which is really the measure that is used by countries around the world.

I want to draw the member's attention back to the 1989 Wilson budget. He only has to look at that budget to realize that his party added the surtax, raised corporate taxes and raised personal income taxes. It did everything that he now stands up in this House and accuses this government of doing.

I would only hope that the hon. member could stand in his place and recognize that this budget, for the first time in a long time, has started to give Canadians hope. As we have said, the tax cuts are modest. We will continue on that track. I hope the hon. member would stand up so that constituents in his riding could hear him say that this budget is on the right track for the first time in decades. It certainly is not as a result of what the Tories have done, and it certainly is not as a result of the Reform Party across the way which does nothing but heckle.

[Jim Jones, Progressive Conservative, Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the hon. member that the way the Liberals got to this balanced budget was by one of the initiatives which was brought in by the Conservatives when they were in power, the free trade agreement. The free trade agreement has yielded incremental tax revenues of approximately $25 billion.

The hon. member said that the government helped small business by taking 400,000 Canadians off the tax rolls. How does that help small business? I did not see any tax relief in here, like reducing the employment insurance premium.

Yesterday we heard in the industry committee that as high as 30% of small and medium size businesses could be out of business by the year 2000. I did not see any tax relief to help those businesses move into the next millennium.

When I look at the debt level, now that we have balanced the budget and the Liberals put in a contingency reserve of $3 billion, I would have brought in a balanced budget or debt reduction law. The way they are dealing with the $3 billion, it will take 200 years to pay it back. They could have done a lot more to assure Canadians of the long term stability of this country.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member who just spoke would like to elaborate a little more on the possible implications and the possible results that could obtain for example with hospitals in their intensive care units not having some of the embedded chips in certain parts of their control switches for the monitoring systems. What kind of an impact could that have on the intensive care units in some of our hospitals?

Could he expand on that a little further as the hon. member is somewhat familiar with this area.

[Jim Jones, Progressive Conservative, Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Kelowna for the question. He and I sit on the same committee.

We are starting to realize the very seriousness of the year 2000 problem. It is probably the biggest disaster since the second world war that could affect the world. We are talking about $6 billion just to fix the problem. Who knows what the legal ramifications will be.

Yesterday we had a presentation on the embedded chips. It is not that easy to fix something. They are embedded in instruments, equipment and technology, maybe 300 or 400 chips at a time. It is the cost of replacing them. If critical equipment shuts down in a hospital, the impact on health care could be severe, lives could be lost or the information obtained or the diagnostics given could be wrong. If the problem has not been addressed, it could also cause legal ramifications for hospitals or other agencies.

This is a very critical problem which the government has to get serious about. I notice that with the millennium scholarship fund it is planning for education in the future. It is also planning the millennium party. It is time that it planned for the most important problem, the millennium bug problem.

[The Deputy Speaker]

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 Mississauga South, Health Care; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Immigration; the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, Fisheries; the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, Pharmaceutical Industry; the hon. member for New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Supreme Court of Canada.

[Norman E. Doyle, Progressive Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me no great pleasure to stand today in the House to state the budget is not a very big winner back home in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Yes, we are all very much aware the budget has been balanced, but we have to ask ourselves at what price to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

There has been a 35% cut in transfer payments to the various provinces to achieve that balance, a 35% cut in moneys dedicated to health and post-secondary education. As a result, health and education services provided by the provinces have been cut severely.

In a poorer province like Newfoundland, the provincial government does not have the financial wherewithal or ability to make up for the reductions. The effect of the cuts in Newfoundland has been more severe than it would be in most provinces in Canada.

I point out to the government that the minister of finance of Newfoundland was quite quick to condemn the budget a couple of weeks ago, and well he should have condemned it.

As a result of the budget, the health care system, which incidentally has made Canada the envy of the world, is now a mere shadow of its former self. In post-secondary education the federal cuts have driven up tuition rates and students, especially those in Atlantic Canada, can least afford these increases. Our students, not only those in Newfoundland and Labrador but students all over Canada, are graduating from various universities and post-secondary education institutions with a debt load that is equal to a small mortgage.

Therefore, while student debt relief measures might be welcome, they should be recognized as a federal bandage on a wound caused by federal cuts in the first place. I do not think the government deserves a great amount of credit for the modest increases it has given to students across the country.

The budget makes a great deal of the $7 billion increase in federal transfers to the provinces. However, in the case of Newfoundland, that only slows down the rate of cuts announced in previous budgets, and there have been cuts in previous budgets. We still receive less and less money in each of the next several years. This budget will cost the provincial government, as the provincial minister of finance has already indicated, in excess of $30 million.

In order to undo the damage that has already been done Newfoundland needs an increase, not a smaller decrease, in federal transfers for health and post-secondary education in particular.

The real tragedy in the budget for Newfoundland is that it contains no real job creation effort. The federal government seems to be quite happy with the fact that the national unemployment rate has gone down to 9%. We rejoice and congratulate the government and everyone who is responsible for bringing the unemployment rate down to 9%.

However, that is cold comfort for Newfoundland and Labrador. We have an unemployment rate that is double the national average. We have an unemployment rate that is officially up around 19.5%. There are many communities within the riding of St. John's East which has an unemployment rate of 60% or 70%. For these people that is cold comfort.

We also had a net outmigration in Newfoundland last year of 9,200 people. If this number were added to the official unemployment of 19.5% in my province, our unemployment rate would be up around 22% or 23%.

In addition, there was news this week that possibly there would not be a follow up on the TAGS program. Thousands of people in the fishery are about to come off the TAGS program who are not yet included in the statistics. If the 20,000-odd people who will be coming off TAGS were added to the 19.5% unemployment rate for our province, the unemployment rate would probably be in excess of 22% or 23%.

In balancing the budget the federal government has laid off as well roughly 15% of the nation's federal employees. Newfoundland and Labrador, the poorest province in Canada, took the biggest hit in terms of federal employees being laid off with roughly 30% of them being laid off.

An economic development fund has been set out in the budget for northern Ontario. I do not begrudge the people of northern Ontario their economic development fund, but Newfoundland has the highest unemployment rate in the country and as yet we do not even have a commitment from the federal government that there will be a follow up program on TAGS.

I will talk about the tax rates in our province and in Canada generally. The tax rates are far too high. They act as a disincentive to job creation. Tax cuts announced in the budget are very modest indeed. They are not large enough to kickstart the nation's domestic economy. No matter how we look at it, this is not a jobs budget.

One more matter of importance to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador is the equalization program. It keeps the province from starving and from moving ahead as well. Revenues raised from major economic projects such as Voisey's Bay and Terra Nova are deducted dollar for dollar from our equalization payments. With equalization payments currently running at about $900 million a year in Newfoundland, we need to raise a billion dollars in revenue to be $100 million better off.

It makes it very difficult for a have not province, a poorer province, to catch up under our current equalization formula. We need a better formula.

In the case of Hibernia a special deal was negotiated that would see us losing only 70 cents on the equalization dollar. We need a more generous arrangement for equalization entitlements. We need that arrangement extended to other resource developments if we are ever to catch up to the various provinces, especially those in central Canada.

In short, the government is celebrating that the federal books are balanced. It sees light at the end of the federal tunnel. However the health and education systems run by the various provinces are in a shambles. They are in tatters.

The bad news for the unemployed people of the country and the people of Atlantic Canada in particular is that they will remain unemployed. For many Canadian citizens, especially people in Atlantic Canada, there is no light at the end of their tunnel. As I said earlier, the books have been balanced, but at what price to some of the provinces and their people?

Having balanced the nation's books, it is now time to start balancing opportunities in the nation. In Newfoundland and Labrador we want to be part of that Canadian dream without having to chase that dream all over Canada.