Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting to rise in reply to this throne speech, as this allows us to tell those who are listening to us that, to us, this speech seems drab and empty.
Government members on the other side of the House may try hard to make us see the positive side of this throne speech, but every newspaper article we read the day after the throne speech agreed with what all four opposition parties were saying. This speech has no clear policy and no vision.
Rather, this speech is an election platform; most commitments will take effect between 2001 and 2004, and probably during the next election campaign, which leads us to believe that the Prime Minister will still be there for the next campaign.
Let us consider one example: parental leave. Overall, this seems to us to be good news, except that the parental leave proposed as a new program is not going to start until 2001. Everyone wonders why it is not now. The money is already there, it is not a problem, so why not start the program up?
As hon. members are aware, the funding for this program comes from the employment insurance fund. Only 40% of people qualify for this fund, and women and young workers are the ones most affected. If access to employment insurance benefits is not changed, one may well wonder who will lucky enough to benefit from parental leave.
First and foremost, October 12th's throne speech is a long shopping list. That list includes the government's commitment to a slight, long term and conditional tax reduction, to reducing the debt still further, to investing in capital projects, and to creating a broad range of programs ranging from improving the national child tax credit, to home care, to education.
We are familiar with the Liberals' promises. The numerous promises in the throne speech appear to be just window-dressing. We have never been given the real cost of these commitments. There is talk of compassion for families and the poor, but the only emphasis is on the homeless. Yet the government does not give us its vision of what programs and measures it will implement to help the homeless. It is fine to support the homeless in the throne speech, but since 1993, this government is no longer involved in social housing programs and has not invested anything in them. So much, then, for compassion.
Recent years have shown us that government commitments were anything but solid. Many still wonder about the ability and real desire of the government to honour its commitments. Other examples come to mind: the GST, pay equity and international aid, for which the government promised to provide .7% of GDP.
My colleague, responsible for daycare, tells me that the 150,000 places in daycare that were promised in recent budgets have yet to be provided.
That said, the fact that the government says it wants to do everything at once is a very clear indication of the fiscal leeway it has this year and of the surpluses that will be distributed in the next budget. As they say, they got the bucks. However, since they want high visibility as they move into the next millennium, they are offering a sprinkling of new programs instead of going after the real problems.
What is even more distressing is that these surpluses have been accumulated on the backs of the unemployed. There is the $25 billion from the employment insurance fund, because $5 billion a year accumulates in this fund. There is the $30 billion in the public service pension fund—if this were private enterprise, such scheming would be considered outright theft—and there are the cuts to transfers to the provinces.
The cuts in provincial transfer payments have hit the public very hard. For the benefit of those listening, I am talking about a $33 billion cut. Then the government wonders why there are health and education problems. It makes cuts and crows about the money it is saving, but the provinces are stuck with the unenviable task of running programs on nothing. They do not have the money and are having trouble maintaining services.
It is disgraceful to slough one's problems off onto the backs of others. In Quebec alone, an additional 200,000 people had to turn to welfare in 1998. They no longer qualified for employment insurance.
Health systems throughout Canada are in terrible shape and the provinces must work hard to avoid the appearance of a two-tier health system, one tier for the rich and one for the poor.
It is not just Quebec that is facing problems in its health care system, but all the provinces. The government would have people think that the problems are limited to Quebec, because of its sovereignist government, but that is not true. We must broaden our horizons and look at the other Canadian provinces, which are forced to turn to the United States to provide health care for their inhabitants.
In this regard, let us remember what Jean Charest said “Forget Lucien Bouchard. He is not the problem. The problem is the cuts made by the federal Liberal government to the Canada social transfer”. This from Mr. Charest in May 1997.
Now that the budget is balanced, it is obvious that the ruthless cuts and overtaxing to which the federal government keeps resorting in spite of the public's pleas are giving it more money than it needs, but the government is still avoiding its responsibilities.
The government prefers to spend that money on new programs, instead of fulfilling its responsibilities, which include alleviating the plight of the unemployed by putting money back into the employment insurance fund which the government pilfered, helping the sick by giving back to the provinces the money it took from them, and giving a break to the middle class by lightening its tax burden—let us not forget that it is the middle class that pays for our social programs. Instead of helping all these people, the government prefers to spend and to interfere in provincial jurisdictions. In Quebec, we already have homecare and pharmacare programs. Therefore, why not give the money to Quebec, to improve what is already in place?
I will conclude by saying that instead of using common sense, the Liberals are beginning again to spend money on all sorts of new programs whose only sure impact is to empty taxpayers' pockets. Why? This is all in the name of visibility and propaganda, coast to coast.