Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity this evening to say a few words regarding the upcoming budget that we expect on or about February 16.
We all saw in the media in the last few days accounts from some speakers in Davos, Switzerland, where world leaders congregate annually to speculate and comment on the future of the world and the major issues of the day.
I noticed with interest that a number of the speakers referred to the unequal distribution of wealth in the world and the concern they had regarding the gap between the haves and the have nots, the increasing disparities and the pace of disparities occurring not only throughout the world between have countries and have not countries but within nations as well.
In the last few weeks in Canada we have heard a number of people comment on their concern regarding the gap between the rich and the poor. As a matter of fact I even recall the Prime Minister referring to the concerns that he had when evidence was presented to him on this growing gap.
It seems to me that as the finance committee toured the country and listened to Canadians from coast to coast to coast, one of the themes that came through loud and clear was that they wanted a level playing field not only for companies, not only for provinces, but for people so that Canadians, no matter what their backgrounds, no matter what their economic situation, no matter what their health and so on, would have an equal opportunity to develop into the citizens of Canada as they should.
Now that the government has surplus funds for the second time in many years, it is mandatory to take steps that would go toward equalizing and levelling the playing field for all Canadians. Whether youngsters are growing up in British Columbia, on an Indian reservation in Saskatchewan or in a small coastal community in Newfoundland, they would have the same opportunities in life to develop into the citizens they wish to be.
Another thing that became clear as we toured the country were the number of people who cautioned us as a finance committee about accepting a simple solution to the economic problems of the country. We hear that today. We hear in the House day after day what I think are simplistic grand or macro solutions to the economic problems.
I remember when it was felt that if inflation came down to 1% or 2% the economy would pick up and get really hot. We all know that did not take place. If we could just get the interest rates down from those high levels of the teens and even beyond and into 4%, 5% and 6% levels it was said that would kickstart the economy back into life. That happened and the economy continues along in its sluggish fashion.
Then the deficit was the problem. The Tories had it up to $42 billion and said that getting the deficit down to zero was the key point. We got the deficit down to zero and again the economy did not take off as in the Rostowian thesis. Now we hear that if we had mega tax cuts it would be the solution to kickstart the economy back to life. That is the new mantra.
I see the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Finance is here. He will remember how unsuccessful Ronald Reagan was when he tried that in the United States. He made massive tax cuts, but did the economy of the United States bounce back into high gear economically? No way. The debt went up and the deficit went up. It did not turn it around.
I know some colleagues have been guilty of saying that full employment would be the solution. The solution is to have everybody working. As Jesse Jackson from the United States reminds us, when they had slavery in the south everybody was working. Slavery was slavery but they had full employment. Is that the kind of solution we want? Let us be cautious about coming up with a macro solution to the complex economic world we have inherited and are living in today.
I want to make a quick comment on foreign investment. I know foreign investment coming into a country is something that cannot be spoken against, that it has to be good for the country. Statistics Canada indicated the other day that the hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment which came into Canada and actually resulted in a new plant, a new factory or a new venture, was only 1.5%. The rest came in and was used for takeovers and that sort of thing, which I might add often costs us jobs.
Whether it is foreign investment, tax cuts, deficit fighting, inflation fighting, interest rate fighting or so on, they are simplistic solutions. We must not be seduced into accepting them as somehow the way to deal with this issue. The Tobin tax is another one we hear about. We had a tax on international currency speculation. Therein lies a major solution.
The reality is that we need all these things together in some sophisticated matrix to create the kind of economic synergy that will get the economy moving again in the right direction so that people can have full employment with real, meaningful, sustainable jobs.
To do that there is one thing missing. I do not think a single person in the House of Commons today would say that as an individual he or she could have a successful life without any kind of plan, without any kind of goal, without any kind of strategy, and just bumble along day by day. Nobody believes that.