Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre.
I listened with interest to the previous speakers and, on principle, we in the New Democratic Party support the principle of Bill C-65 on equalization. It is the ultimate form of an attempt by governments to level the playing field on crucial issues of social spending.
We all like the idea of level playing fields. We do not like different playing fields or uneven playing fields. We now have a level playing field for social programs, and equalization is a step in that direction, where the three have provinces, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, are not included but everybody else is.
Newfoundland will receive $1,648 per capita; P.E.I., $1,340; New Brunswick, $1,154; Manitoba, $898; Quebec, $521; and Saskatchewan, $232.
Looking at the history of this issue and the long lists of the per capita entitlement of provinces over time since equalization was first brought in, we notice something about the province of Saskatchewan. This province moves in and out from being a have province some years to being a have-not province in other years. Every other province is consistent. British Columbia is a have province, Ontario is a have province and Alberta is a have province. All of the other provinces are have-not provinces, but Saskatchewan is different. It comes and it goes. We wonder what is behind these statistics until we factor in which party forms the provincial government. By and large, it works like this. The people of Saskatchewan elect a Conservative or a Liberal government. It gets into financial and economic crises and then the province of Saskatchewan needs equalization payments. It qualifies.
Then the people elect a CCF-NDP government and everything is back in order again and Saskatchewan loses its status. Then the people elect a Conservative or a Liberal government which screws up the economy again. Basically it is a history lesson. Liberals and Conservatives screw up the economy and the CCF-NDP governments get it all back in order again. It is a reflection of the province qualifying or not qualifying for equalization payments. There is an interesting history lesson in these statistics.
I want to reflect on a view that was previously stated. We are talking about one sector of this whole issue of equalization, which is an umbrella for attempting to be fair. Yet sometimes when it comes to health care the government has been very unfair by unilaterally slashing beyond anything reasonable the health care system to cause irreparable damage to that sector.
We would be hard-pressed to find a single Canadian who does not say that our health care system is in disastrous shape because of the Liberal government. There are some people who will distinctly say that some provincial governments are involved, which is true. Ontario is involved. But by and large the slashing and hacking and the damaging records have been caused by the Liberal government in Ottawa.
I was shocked when we added up all of the costs of health care to find how much the federal government actually pays. I remember the old days when it was 50:50. We all remember the good old days when the federal government said it was an equal partner in this marriage. It said that it was an equal player and for every dollar spent it would pay 50 cents, that it would pony up, and it did. That was the way it was supposed to work. It was a family of the federal and provincial governments and the federal government paid 50%. It was a nice balance. That was the way it was supposed to work.
However, over the years that old playing field just about tipped upside down. When we add up all of the costs of health care, 30% is paid privately. There is nothing about dental work, eye glasses and so on, which is all part of health care. Sixty-one per cent is picked up by the provincial governments and the federal government picks up 9%. That is a real embarrassment. The Liberals should be hanging their heads in shame. They should be apologizing. They should feel sorry for what they have done and they should rectify it.
Let us understand that when we talk about equalization, which my party has supported from day one, we cannot look at it in isolation. It is important that we acknowledge that while the government has devastated health care, it has now come forward with a revised Bill C-65 which, on principle, my party supports.
Casino revenues are now taken into account with respect to the provinces' abilities to raise revenues, which makes sense because of the way the country is going. I do not want to comment on casino taxes or anything of that nature because I got into trouble doing that the other day.
The bill also reflects the value of harvested timber as opposed to the volume of harvested timber. It is fair to say that the province of British Columbia has some of the highest quality wood in the world. I do not know if it is the highest quality wood in the world, but possibly it is. This measure is fair. Some of the other provinces harvest a lot of timber as well, but it is of a slightly different quality.
Also we acknowledge that the cost of obtaining new oil is much more expensive than old oil. I know that old oil and new oil is a favourite topic of yours, Madam Speaker, but it is something we have to deal with.
At this point we, as well as some of our friends to the right, consider this as being a bit of serious tinkering. We have to take this more seriously. We have to see it in terms of the context in which we consider all of the fairness of this. My friends in the Reform Party reminded us about that little adjustment just before the Newfoundland election, which we all noticed and thought was interesting. Our friend Brian, from a previous life here, will have a chance to balance his books. Nevertheless, we have to get much more serious about how we develop this kind of policy.
Let us consider how the social union was struck. There were 11 middle aged, white men stuck away in the Prime Minister's residence playing poker with social policy: “I get this. You get this. I get a bigger share than you. No, your share is bigger than mine” and so on and so forth. They cut a deal. Mark my words, what we do not know is what part of that deal was left unstated. The Prime Minister said to premier X that if he bought into the deal they could make arrangements about X , Y and Z a little later.
We all agree that policy making in a crucial area such as health care or social policy ought not to be done by a few guys sitting in a secret meeting, cutting a deal over dinner. That is not the way we should develop public policy. Unfortunately that is the way it is done. That is the way the state of affairs has progressed.
My friend from Regina is going to be making a number of comments more specifically regarding his province. At this stage we in the New Democratic Party support in principle the issue of equalization. We have some obvious concerns which will come up during the committee's work on this legislation.