Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Saint-Eustache—Sainte-Thérèse for sharing her time with me.
I too am pleased to take part in the discussion on this universally criticized budget. Even if we agree with the results, we can have some very serious reservations on the means used to accomplish them, because we know that this zero deficit plus surpluses has been reached at the expense of the provinces, middle-income families, the unemployed, the sick, students and welfare recipients.
But where does this surplus come from? In 1993, the Liberal red book said it was unrealistic to wish to eliminate the federal deficit in five years. The Prime Minister stated that such an objective could not be attained without pillaging social programs, and no Liberal government would agree to do such a thing. Four budgets later, the federal deficit is now eliminated, but at the price they refused to pay in 1993.
The main accomplishment of the Liberal government as far as beating the deficit is concerned can be summarized as follows: $42 billion in cuts to hospitals, universities and welfare, an employment insurance reform which impoverishes the unemployed, coupled with an economic upturn combined with non-indexed tax tables. That is what the zero deficit is all about.
But, let us face it, this approach of getting other people to do what one is incapable of doing oneself has put the federal government in a position where, for the first time in a long while, there was the possibility of somewhat lightening the tax burden of Canadian and Quebec taxpayers, the working and the unemployed, in short those who are responsible for the situation we are now in.
Fifty-four per cent, or more than half, of the cuts in expenditures made by the federal government between 1994 and 1998, moreover, were dumped onto the governments of Quebec and the provinces, to the tune of $6.3 billion annually. An annual amount of $6.3 billion is no trifle.
Yet in 1993, the Prime Minister stated “In our program, we have no intention of cutting payments to individuals or to the provinces. That is clear and it is in writing”. I refer those who may want to know where this quote is from to the September 25, 1993 edition of La Presse . Of course, no one believed at the time that this promise would be kept any more than the others, the GST for example.
However, the current fiscal situation, which was achieved thanks to the efforts of provincial governments, permitted at the very least that the provinces be compensated for the losses caused by this offloading. To this end, the government could have given them as tax points 25% of the next two years' surpluses, thereby cancelling out the cuts imposed during the first Liberal mandate in the transfers for health, education and social assistance.
This would have enabled the provincial governments to regain the flexibility lost in previous budgets while not affecting the federal government's finances. Indeed, it would still record a surplus of approximately $30.8 billion in 2001-02, even if 25% of the next two years' surpluses were paid back to the provinces.
There they go creating new programs. It has been known for months that the finance minister's latest budget would be a surplus budget, or at least a balanced budget. All the stakeholders, be it the Bloc Quebecois or the other opposition parties, the premiers and finance ministers of Quebec or the provinces, asked, begged the Liberal government not to start spending again before having made up for the losses resulting from the cuts made these past few years in health, education and social programs.
Nothing was done. The government has gone right back to wasting taxpayers' money, introducing a myriad of new measures that will duplicate or overlap what is already being done in the provinces, and running the risk of again losing control of its spending and plunging us into a deficit spiral.
The best example of this renewed interference is the creation of millennium scholarships. This fund is a pointless affront to the governments of Quebec and of the other provinces and makes no provision for withdrawal with compensation. The Prime Minister is bent on sending out cheques with the maple leaf on them and was certainly not going to be stopped by considerations of jurisdiction, as defined in his own Constitution.
This morning, in an article about a new home care program, a health department official told us why the federal government was introducing this new program: “We want to see the maple leaf on the cheque”. As one of my constituents said to me, if the Prime Minister is so interested in visibility, all he has to do is put his picture on the twenty-dollar bill.
Quebec already has a student assistance program that is a vast improvement on all similar programs in Canadian provinces. Not only is it the only program with loans that are advantageous for students, but it is the only one where they do not have to pay back scholarships when they graduate. The result is that the average indebtedness of Quebec students is half that of students in other provinces.
No one in Quebec wants to see that money wasted on some program that would duplicate what is already being done and done well. Even the education sector condemns this “operation visibility” which, in the end, will be conducted at the expense of the students themselves. Hopefully, the appeals to common sense made by Quebec stakeholders will be heard by the Prime Minister, before the upcoming meeting with Quebec government officials.
I also want to talk about health, since I am the critic on this issue. In Quebec, and everywhere in Canada, health is probably the sector where the federal government has done the most damage. Disconnected as it is from the medical realities in the provinces, the federal government offloaded its deficit onto provincial health programs, at a time when the provinces themselves were in the middle of a restructuring process. After blaming the provinces for its cuts, the federal government should have redistributed the surplus of the last budget to alleviate the negative impact that it helped create in the first place.
Yet, the new budget does confirm that federal cuts totalling $42 billion will be made between now and the year 2002. However, it is silent on how the government will use the additional $70 million that will be generated by the increase on tobacco taxes. The budget includes no new measures to deter young people from smoking, and it does not provide any compensation for sports and cultural events.
But the biggest disappointment is the lack of any reference to the financial compensation the victims of Hepatitis C contamination have been awaiting for years, which the government can now afford to pay immediately. Unfortunately, a measure of this type did not fit in with the Liberal's objective of keeping a high profile. Yet the federal government could implement this immediately, without waiting for the provinces, which are already saddled with the costs of services provided to these victims through the health system.
The biggest surprise where health is concerned came, not in the budget speech, but from the mouth of the Minister of Health, when he brought into the open the federal government's true intentions as far as encroachments on health are concerned. This is unacceptable.
Since you are indicating I have only a minute left, Mr. Speaker, I will move on immediately to my conclusion, which is that the latest budget by the Minister of Finance has once again confirmed what the Bloc Quebecois has been saying for a number of years, that the federal government's plan is to put the provinces in a shaky situation budget-wise, and then to come along to rescue them with new initiatives in areas that fall within provincial jurisdiction.
The best illustration of this approach is provided by the President of Treasury Board himself, with his statement that “When Bouchard has to make cuts, we in Ottawa will then be able to demonstrate that we have the means to preserve the future of social programs”. Here we have both overlap and duplication.