Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting debate.
It was interesting when the member responsible for the subject being debated in the House was speaking, but it is always more interesting after the member from the Reform Party gets up. We hear in his comments on the proposal the not so hidden but explicit agenda of the Reform Party with respect to equalization.
I do not agree with the hon. member from Newfoundland with respect to his proposal for some of the reasons that have been outlined in previous speeches on the government side and on the official opposition side, that it would be a mistake to make this kind of exception. It could prove over the long term to be the undoing of the equalization payments program we have in this country, a concept and a program that Canadians should be reminded is in the Constitution of Canada. This is not some ad hoc or even long term contingent decision of successive Canadian governments. The principle and policy of equalization payments was enshrined in the Constitution when we patriated the BNA Act in 1982. I was in the House at the time and remember well that this was one of the concerns that many of us had, that when the Constitution was patriated the principle of equalization would be enshrined and therefore beyond the reach of governments which, for whatever reason, might have wanted to do away with the principle altogether.
I think it is a great principle and I think it is too bad that we cannot bring ourselves to treat each other the way we have decided to treat each other when we consider ourselves as provinces. In other words, we have this principle in the country that all provinces shall basically have a guaranteed adequate income in order to provide, if I remember the wording correctly, reasonably comparable services to all Canadians no matter where they live.
I say that because the member from the Reform Party repeatedly talked about equalization payments as having something to do with economic opportunity and equality of opportunity. Only in a very indirect sense, because equalization payments are not about equality of opportunity, except in so far as they may be about a reasonably comparable level of educational services or a reasonably comparable level of heath services or a reasonably comparable level of many other kinds of services provided by the provincial government. But it does in the end have to do with the provision of services by the provincial governments so that provincial governments, no matter what province they may be the government of, can provide this reasonably comparable level of service.
I think that is a principle we need to preserve and extend into the way we treat each other as individuals so that all Canadians as individuals and not just their provinces might be guaranteed a reasonably comparable standard of living no matter where they live.
It was interesting to hear the member from the Reform Party who talked about Albertans being taxed so heavily. Is this not the province that does not have a sales tax? I always get a bit of a charge out of hearing people from Alberta say woe are the Albertans because they are so heavily taxed. They do not have a sales tax. Whatever taxes they do have are ameliorated by the income that has come from the energy sector there over the years. It may be going down now, but this may be because, contrary to the rhetoric of the hon. member, it is not just in various imaginary socialist worlds that governments subsidize industry. What about all the money in Alberta that has been lost subsidizing capitalists like Peter Pocklington who liked to go around badmouthing government and badmouthing subsidies and badmouthing intervention in the marketplace but have been more than willing to step up to the trough when it was their turn.
It not just amused me but actually infuriated me that I have had to listen to so much anti-government intervention rhetoric over the years here from Alberta members of parliament when successive Alberta governments, Progressive Conservative governments in particular, have been more than willing to put all kinds of public money into various private ventures and not, I might say, with a great deal of success. So spare us the false dichotomy between those on the right who are so prudent with the public's money and those on the left who allegedly are otherwise.
The record will show that governments on the right have been frivolous and even outrageous with the kinds of the money they have been prepared to put into the business ventures of their friends. It is not that we intervene in the marketplace. It is that we intervene in the marketplace on behalf of somebody who is not our friend. That is the real offence of the right-wingers in this country. If it is done on behalf of friends it is trying to help the economy along, trying to create the right climate, all that sort of thing that we have had to listen to for years.
I am also concerned about an argument that I heard just the other day. We need to be aware of this as there is some truth in it. Those who supported the free trade agreement should be concerned about it. I heard that Professor Thomas Courchene said, I think at a C.D. Howe Institute forum, that over the long term the erosion of east-west economic and political ties in the country and the strengthening and expansion of north-south ties would erode the willingness of Canadians in the so-called have provinces to participate in equalization.
His argument was that in the previous Canadian context if money was going from Ontario, Alberta and B.C. to other provinces and they were spending that money they would be spending it in a national economy. The money would return to Ontario, B.C. or whatever in the form of purchasing goods or commodities coming out of those so-called have provinces. The long term effect of the free trade agreements would be that this no longer would be the case. Money coming from Ontario to Manitoba would not be turned around and spent in Ontario again. There would not be this effect that there used to be. The money would be spent somewhere else, probably buying something made in the United States or Mexico or in the global economy given the effect of globalization.
It is a very interesting argument and one that bothers me. It is not something I would like to see. It points out once again all the unintended side effects of entering into these agreements which at the time many people warned would have the effect of breaking down certain traditions within the country and certain ways of viewing each other and relating to each other.
Equalization is one of the primary ways we have of relating to each other as Canadians through the principle that all Canadians no matter where they live should have provincial governments that are fiscally able to provide a reasonably comparable level of service. Anything which poses a danger to this should be of concern.
I have noticed in the past that Mr. Courchene has often been the harbinger of bad policy and things that when we first heard them we hoped they would never come true but then 10 or 15 years down the line they are conventional wisdom. I hope his current reflections on the equalization program do not belong in the same category.