Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege again to be able to make some remarks on Bill C-36, the Budget Implementation Act, and specifically on the amendment with respect to the millennium scholarship fund.
There are four problems the government has created for itself, to a large degree, with the bill. Canadians need to know about these problems and need to recognize that the government has not handled the issue well at all.
These are the problems. The first problem is the whole business of the design of the fund. Not only was it designed in such a way that it contravenes a lot of the jurisdictional realties of our country but it also causes some heightened interprovincial tensions quite unnecessarily. The second problem is with the accounting that was used to fund this initiative. The third problem was the trouble we ran into with the legislation and then closure being put into place to cut off debate and ramming the legislation through, which is a typical Liberal tactic that is becoming more typical as time goes on. The fourth problem is that the legislation does not go very far in addressing the problems of students.
I would just like to touch on each of these problems a bit. With respect to the design of the fund, the government after it took office slashed funding by 35% to 40% to the provinces for programs like post-secondary education. It wasted the money that was to go to the provinces to keep post-secondary education services available to our citizens. That was the first act in this drama.
The second act in the drama began in February with the budget. The 1995 budget was the family budget, the child poverty budget. Liberals like to have a theme or a cause. They like to be able to say they care about something. The theme of the last budget before this one was poor children. There was much violin playing about poor children, mostly poor because of the terrible fiscal policies of the government.
The theme of the last budget was education. Students were to be helped. If we listened to government speakers we could hear them going on and on about the value of education and how wonderful it was that we looked after our children and their training, et cetera. There was no mention of the fact that the Liberals had slashed education funding just shortly before this wonderful education budget. That was all forgotten, but this budget was to do something for students.
There are over one million students in the country, many of whom are in retraining or upgrading because the economy is changing. Yet this so-called program only helps 7% of all people who are trying desperately to gain the educational and training skills they need to compete in the emergent economy.
Further, the millennium scholarship fund has all the earmarks of a grand gesture by the Prime Minister. This was the Prime Minister's legacy. This was a memorial to the Prime Minister's generosity toward students and concern for youth. The fact of the matter was that the concern was kind of newborn. It came after the slashing of funding to post-secondary education. Now we are to wear education on our heart and the Prime Minister is to have a millennium scholarship fund for only 7% of our students.
Those 7% who get scholarships will find it taxed. They will give part of it back to the federal government. Their families may actually give a whole lot more back to the federal government if the student who qualifies for a scholarship loses dependant status in the context of the family tax structure. Here we have a few students getting a scholarship who will be taxed on the scholarship which may rearrange the family tax status.
Who are the students to be given the gift of a scholarship by the federal government? If the track record of the Liberal government holds true, the scholarships will be largely targeted as rewards to good and faithful Liberals and Liberal supporters and those who the Liberals want to court.
I do not think it is too unkind to say that this is how the Liberals have operated in a whole range of areas and how they are very likely to continue to operate. It will be a nice slush fund for Liberals to be able to help other good and deserving Liberals for political purposes. That is a genuine concern of the opposition in this whole matter. It also disrespects provincial jurisdiction in the area of education.
The constitution says that the provinces have control over the delivery of post-secondary education services, but the federal government as usual feels it knows best. Did the federal government go to the education minister of Manitoba? Did it go to the education minister of New Brunswick and say that due to thrift and good management, and maybe due to heavier taxation, it has some extra money to spend on education? Did it ask how someone responsible for delivering educational services in the provinces on the post-secondary level feel the money should be spent? Did the government do that?
The answer is no. There was not a word said to the provincial ministers responsible for these services. The federal government just decided it would spend $2.5 billion on this grand gesture to show that the Prime Minister was a fine fellow who cares about youth and students. That was the flavour of the day. The government must have done some polling to show that people were worried about education.
Another aspect of the millennium scholarship fund was the way it was put on the government books. The government said it was to spend the money and therefore deduct it right now from its cash flow. It was not to be spent until the year 2000 but it was to be deducted from cash on hand, from the revenue stream right now.
Let us think about this point for a minute. Suppose a farmer in Saskatchewan says his tractor is getting worn out but thinks it will do for a couple of more seasons. In the spring of 2000 he plans to buy a new tractor but he wants to deduct that capital expense now because he has already made up his mind that he will spend the money. What happens if he tries to count it as an expenditure in 1998?
Let us think of the response of Revenue Canada to the farmer who intends to spend the money in the year 2000 and would like to use it a capital expense today. The farmer would get a horse laugh from the government or the revenue department.
What about a business person who intends to upgrade facilities or any person who intends to make a tax deductible expense in the future and tries to claim it today? That would never be allowed, but the government thinks it is not subject to those reasonable rules of accounting and is cooking the books to hide a surplus so that at the end of the day it can make even more spending announcements close to an election.
I see you are cutting me off, Mr. Speaker, and rightly so since my time is up. The government uses closure and cutting off debate so that these badly designed measures can be rammed through. It is a shame. It is a disrespect of parliament. I ask the House not to support the measures the government is trying to push through.