Mr. Speaker, it is with some pleasure and certainly with a lot of frustration that I rise today to detail our position on the budget.
I would echo the comments of the previous speaker from the Liberal Party as I also come from Manitoba. I have a lot of pride in what has been achieved in Manitoba over the last number of years.
I must say, however, that the hon. member from the Liberal Party and his government do not have a lot they can say about the improvements in Manitoba. The improvements that have happened, the 4.8% unemployment rate, the increase in the economy, were done because of a provincial government that was able to put into place its philosophies and financial understanding of its budget so that it could develop that economy in Manitoba. So I take some exception to the federal Liberal member's taking credit for something that was done in the province of Manitoba.
As I said, I stand with some frustration in speaking to the budget put forward in the House. I have a number of areas of frustration.
I guess we really did not have to hear the finance minister's speech the other night because had we all been listening to the media and reading the newspapers we could have heard what would be placed on the floor. It was a budget that was put out to the Canadian public long before it ever hit this floor. Trial balloons were being floated constantly by the finance minister. Obviously his program was being put out in the media as opposed to being put out where it should been, in the House.
There was frustration in seeing the Liberals self-congratulating themselves on putting forward what I considered to be a smoke and mirrors budget. That is not my comment. The hon. member says that Winnipeg and members of his constituency are pleased about what the budget has embraced. A headline in one Manitoba newspapers read “The Smoke and Mirrors Budget”. I do not see where that is embracing the budget. It does, however, get to the root of the issue where there is a lot of smoke and mirrors. A shell game is going on in the budget with which I will deal in the next couple of minutes.
I am splitting my time with the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest who will be speaking for the other 10 minutes.
Let us deal with a couple of very pertinent issues. The budget is heralded as the health care budget. The hon. member just said in his speech that an incredible—that was the term used; we can check Hansard —$11.5 billion would be put back into health care over the next five years. Incredible, incroyable.
Would he use the same term, incredible, to describe the $17 billion that was cut from the health care budget? Is that incredible, incroyable? Since 1993, $17 billion were cut from the health care budget, but now all of a sudden $11.5 billion is incredible. Canadians are smarter than that. They do not think so, but I know Canadians will see through their shell game.
There is a surplus today. We do not know what the surplus will be because games are being played. Dollars are being budgeted in the 1998-99 budget that have not been expended but will be taken forward into the 1999-2000 budget. What is the real number?
When we deal with budgets and budgetary functions we try to honestly put before the constituencies the revenue and the expenditure. What was left over from the two was some surplus to do with whatever we wished. We made sure the constituencies had input into the spending of those surpluses.
We do not know what the surplus is for 1998-99. We do not know what the budgeted surpluses are for 1999-2000 or where in fact the finance minister will spend these surpluses. Let us make no mistake about it. They will be spent on probably a leadership campaign, not directly but certainly during the leadership campaign. I suspect we will see a lot of those surpluses rising to the surface and being put into programs that are perhaps pet programs for particular individuals on the Liberal benches.
Let us get back to health care. The hon. member stood here and read a press release which said that $425 million over the next five years would be put back into Manitoba. What the hon. member neglected to say was that Manitoba had been impacted by $240 million in cuts every year for the last three years. The numbers do not add up.
Manitoba has given back substantially more over the last three years than the government is prepared to put back in over the next five years. Why did the government not make it 10 years instead of 5 years? Why did the government not give a real big number so Canadians could be snowed? Why only five years? Why did it not deal with 10 years? Maybe I am giving the finance minister some opportunity to change his mandate or his method of operation for the next budget so he can expand it over more than a five year term.
Let us talk about some other areas of serious importance in my constituency. That area obviously is agriculture. The 1998-99 budget, the one that will be ending on March 31 of this year, shows $600 million being put to an aid program, the AIDA program. I find it very unlikely that dollars will flow to farmers by March 31 of this year, but $600 million are reflected in that budget.
I assume that will be put in trust and will be put forward to the next budget year, the year 1999-2000. The auditor general will have a lot to say about the shenanigans in this budget. It is not good accounting procedure, but it makes the government look good. Unfortunately it will come back to haunt the government.
In agriculture we have been saying all along that we do not need an ad hoc program. We agree that the government should put together some vision, foresight and thought and put dollars in a budget that will be able to look after the cyclical problems of agriculture on a regular basis, like the GRIP program that was cut by the government in 1995. Short term gain for long term pain continues. There is nothing reflected in the budget to show for a long term solution to agricultural cyclical downturns. That to me is a deficiency in the budget.
The hon. member for Charlesbourg said with great pride that he has a Canadian forces base in his constituency. With great pride I say that I also have a Canadian forces base in my constituency. I probably see the personnel, talk to them and deal with them more often than does the hon. member. I am in constant touch with that constituency.
The $175 million reflected in the budget do not even come within a fraction of what was requested to bring military families up to standard. The budget does not reflect anything for needed equipment purchases.
We sit in the House every day and talk about the Sea King helicopters. We talk about military equipment that is 30 and 35 years old. That was not reflected in the budget because it is a health care budget that is also a farce and a sham.
If there is one request I could make—and I know there is a majority government and that the budget will pass—of the Minister of Finance and the government, it would be that the next time they table a budget in the House they should be totally up front with Canadians, tell them exactly what they are doing to them and tell them that the tax cuts will not be reflected in their next paycheque.
I have request of Canadians. They should not start spending their tax breaks because they will find there is not a lot there. With the CPP increases and because the tax breaks will take place on July 1 of this year, an income of $39,000 will have a $3 income tax increase for the year 1999. I would really like to thank the Liberal government for that.