Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to this budget on behalf of the constituents of Dauphin—Swan River. After surveying the constituency, I can report that their priorities differ from the priorities of the government.
More than 66% of my constituents said they wanted the reduction of the $583 billion debt to be the priority of any surplus. Over 56% said that their second priority was the reduction of the GST and income taxes. Another 9% made tax relief their first priority. Ten per cent wanted increased spending after the debt was paid down. Only 3.2% of my constituents agreed with what the government is doing by increasing spending before paying down the debt.
One of the best things about being an MP with the Reform Party is that we are not only free to vote, we are expected to represent the views of our constituents, especially when our constituents' views conflict with party policy.
I have not lost my role as deputy critic for national unity, nor have I lost my standing committee memberships.
We all know what the Prime Minister did to the independent member for York South—Weston and Warren Allmand when they would not go along with the orders that came down from the top. Warren Allmand was kicked out of the chair of the justice committee and the member for York South—Weston was first kicked out of the Liberal caucus and then the Liberal Party of Canada by the Prime Minister.
Section 53 of the Constitution Act, 1867, the BNA Act, assigns the House of Commons the responsibility for authorizing all new or increased spending in taxes. Under section 54 the crown and cabinet can only recommend new spending and taxes. They cannot authorize, at least in theory. Let us not forget that.
Through their member of the House of Commons the people are to be free to express whether or not they think increased spending or taxes is what they want. That is how it is spelled out in the Constitution. That is the theory.
The trouble is that theory is often fiction and the truth is very strange. Instead of MPs who are here to serve and express the will of the people on spending and taxes, the government seems to think MPs are here to serve and express the will of the government.
Last week we celebrated 150 years of responsible government, beginning with Baldwin and Lafontaine. In fact, Joseph Howe established responsible government sometime earlier in Nova Scotia.
What is responsible government? It means that the crown and the cabinet are to be held responsible to the elected House, the House of the people, the House of Commons. The House of Commons is not responsible to the cabinet. Somewhere along the line we got it backwards and now backbenchers are expected to fall in line with whatever the Prime Minister and the cabinet send down from on high. Responsible government is not working the way Joseph Howe, Baldwin and Lafontaine and so many others thought it should.
I think it is time to try some new ways of making sure that spending and taxes theoretically authorized by this House are supported by the people, the voters, the taxpayers.
What is the answer? How about the grassroots solution?
Tax and expenditure legislation in my home province of Manitoba requires that tax increases be authorized by the voters through a referendum. Tax and expenditure legislation also holds the premier and the cabinet of Manitoba personally and financially responsible for any budget deficit.
Someone once said that hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully. Tax and expenditure legislation concentrates it wonderfully on the priorities of government and on careful management of the public's money. After all, it is not the crown's money and it is not the Prime Minister's money. It is not the cabinet's money. It is not even the MPs' money. It is the public's money held in trust to be spent only as necessary in a responsible manner.
Someone might say “We cannot do that. We have never done it before”. My first response to that is to list the seven last words of any dying institution or organization. The seven last words of a dying institution are, “We've never done it that way before”.
I have already pointed out Manitoba's pioneering use of tax and expenditure legislation. Alberta has also enacted tax and expenditure legislation.
Even this House passed a very weak version of tax and expenditure legislation, the Spending Control Act, in the 34th Parliament. The Spending Control Act was brought to this House by Don Mazankowski in 1992. Most of us say it was too little, too late.
Under the Spending Control Act the finance minister was required to aim for statutory targets on program spending and to justify any deficits. The statutory targets were in effect up to March 31, 1996.
If the current finance minister really wants to make his mark on Canada and federal government spending policy, if he is really serious when he says that the mistakes of the past finance ministers to run deficits for more than 25 years will never be repeated, then he should bring in tax and expenditure legislation as soon as possible.
By the way, one of those past finance ministers who spent us into a $583 billion debt, excluding liabilities, was the finance minister who delivered the budget speech of 1978, the current Prime Minister.
We are glad the Prime Minister stayed in parliament long enough to be here to take advice from the Reform Party on how to begin cleaning up the mess he helped create in the 1970s. However, there is still a $583 billion debt plus at least as much in CPP liabilities that need to be cleaned up. If we go at the rate the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance propose it will take well over 200 years to clean up the mess.
The finance minister likes to compare Canada to the standards for European Community membership: budget deficits at no more than 3% of GDP and public debts at no more than 60% of GDP. What the Minister of Finance and Prime Minister forget is that those standards apply to the total deficits and debts of all levels of government: federal, provincial and municipal. Maybe it is just selective memory.
Even if we deal only with federal debt, we are at between 70% and 75% of GDP. If we add the current CPP liability we are at something like 140% and 150% of GDP. If we add health care liabilities for the next 20 years, even I do not want to think about that.
What did the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance do in the last parliament? They cut $4 billion in funding for health care and offloaded even more of the liability on to the provinces. If that is Liberal social conscience, I would like to know where is the conscience.
If the Prime Minister really wants to do something in the new millennium for Canada's youth then he should take steps to make sure that Canada's youth are not saddled with a huge public debt and high taxes for the next millennium.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance should bring in tax expenditure legislation that does the following. First, I suggest they should require the public accounts to be balanced over the life of a parliament. Second, they should require public approval for any new or increased taxes. Third, they should require any budget surplus to be applied to lowering the debt and taxes.
In closing, members of the House should never forget that they have a constitutional responsibility to authorize only the spending and taxes people want. Tax and expenditure legislation would go far in sending a clear message to Canadians that we understand it is their money and that we take our responsibility to them seriously.