Mr. Speaker, in a way, I thank the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for launching this very important debate on the direction we want to give to the year 2000 budget.
I would not necessarily agree with the points he made in his opening comments and there was some digression later in terms of the clarity bill. But on the question of transfers, Canadians are clear that Quebec gets its share of the federal transfers, in fact more than 50% of the equalization payments. That is what this House is about. That is what this debate is all about. That is how democracy works.
It is my privilege and pleasure to lead off today's debate, a debate addressing what will likely be one of the most important budgets in modern Canadian history. This happy chore has been given to me by the finance minister.
The finance minister is in Berlin chairing the inaugural meeting of the G-20, a body dedicated to strengthening and stabilizing the world's financial architecture. The minister has asked me to express his thanks and appreciation to the hon. members of the finance committee for their committed efforts in what was truly a national odyssey to hear the views of Canadians and for the quality of that work in synthesizing and reporting those views.
Today's debate is another important stage in the process of prebudget consultation introduced by this government. It is a process that many today take for granted. Let us remember what a dramatic change it represents compared to earlier decades when budgets seemed to be prepared in not so splendid isolation from the public and the emphasis seemed to be on backroom bartering rather than on public discussion and debate.
Many members of the House have had prebudget consultations and town hall meetings in their ridings across Canada. I hosted a prebudget consultation in my riding of Etobicoke North on October 21. A large number of my constituents came forward to present their views on this very important budget. They told me that they wanted a balanced approach. That was the opinion of the constituents in my riding and I look forward to the debate on the budget 2000 by members in the House of Commons.
To help set the stage for this debate, I remind all hon. members of some of the important elements of our current economic and fiscal performance. It is these elements that set the context in terms of opportunities and also real limits for the 2000 budget.
As the minister reported to the committee in his fall economic and fiscal update last month, our national economy is strong with one of the best growth rates among the G-7 major industrialized nations and a number one record for creating jobs.
These results are due in great part to the fact that we were able to put our federal fiscal house in order. The time when we ended up with a deficit and an increase in our public debt year after year is over. For two years in a row now, we have had a surplus, something we had not seen since 1951-1952, almost 50 years.
The government is committed to maintaining this record of fiscal responsibility as the unyielding foundation for all policy initiatives.
Looking ahead based on the average of forecasts by a group of Canada's leading private sector economists, this record of annual fiscal surpluses should grow from $5.5 billion in 2000-01 to $23 billion in 2004-05. This is a well deserved dividend that Canadians have earned through their support of the tough fiscal choices we had to make in bringing Canada's books back into balance. Of course those are impressive numbers but we must never let them tempt us into losing sight of the need for continued financial probity and prudence.
As the minister said to our committee, we live in a volatile global economy. Offshore events can buffet us overnight, sharply reducing future revenues from today's planning basis. That is why the government is sticking with the advice of the leading economists we consulted with and using real caution in our planning projections. This includes deducting our yearly $3 billion contingency reserve and a significant prudence factor before we arrived at those surplus estimates.
While the update does offer a five year forecast for discussion and planning purposes, we should and we will continue to take budget decisions only within a rolling two year time horizon. This is something I hope hon. members will address in the debate to come.
It was through near term and real term targets that we made a reality of deficit elimination. That is how we can ensure that the government does not commit long term financial resources today for tax cuts for important national investments, popular as these may be, at the risk of a return to punishing deficits in years to come.