Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have an opportunity to speak to the budget. This is the first chance that I have had to share my point of view on what most Canadians viewed as a huge disappointment.
We all thought that the bad news was over. Stoically, Canadians suffered through years and years of cutbacks. They were being told they could not afford anything even though we are one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world. They were being told they could not afford the basic needs for a family to survive. We were all sold that bill of goods. We were told this over and over again until working Canadians believed it. They really believed and accepted that there was not enough money to go around.
For seven, eight and nine years they suffered through this era of cutbacks, restraint and whatever buzzword the government was using at the time. This year was surplus time. They really thought there was a surplus. They thought they could finally get back to where they were in the pre-cutback era. Even if they were not moving forward, they thought they could at least get back to where they were.
No, there was none of that. They are being told again that we cannot afford the basic needs for a family to survive, such as a national daycare program. How long have we been waiting for a national daycare program? How long has it been recognized as a necessity? To get more people into the workforce we are going to have to provide for those basic needs.
While driving to work in the wintertime in my riding of Winnipeg Centre, two or three times I drove by the same woman standing at a bus stop at 6.30 a.m. on a cold winter morning. The temperature was probably 25-below, as it often is on a winter morning in Winnipeg. This woman was on her way to daycare, I presume, because she had with her a toddler of about 18 months old who was wrapped up in a parka, scarf and mitts. The child could hardly stand because of all the layers of clothing.
I thought to myself that this woman, to her credit, probably has to get up every morning at five to get this child wrapped up because she is standing at a bus stop at 6.30 with her child to go to work. This woman probably has to take the bus all the way across town, drop the child off at daycare and then take the bus back to get to her job. God knows what kind of work she was doing. She looked to be about 22 years old. This really drove home to me what an urgent need there is in this country for adequate, decent, quality child care that is affordable and accessible. No, there is no mention of that.
The basic needs and expectations of families was that maybe this year the bad news was over. Finally, we are in a surplus budget and we will start spending on some priorities that people really care about. No, that simply was not to be.
Everybody knows that the child tax credit does not go to families on welfare, the people who need it most. Our illustrious premiers are clawing it back dollar for dollar.
Yes, the feds are making a gesture in the right direction. However, the program is so flawed that it is not going to wind up in the hands of the people who need it most, the people on social assistance. It is being clawed back. We lose dollar for dollar, at least in our province. It is small consolation.
There are people, like that woman standing at the bus stop, who go from the day's drudgery to the evening's desperation. That is the whole scope of their life. They will take very little solace or comfort in the budget that we saw today.
When I say that the government is finally in a surplus position and could start spending on some priorities, one has to ask how it got there. One way it got there is from the $25 billion it looted out of the EI fund surplus, the overpayment. I will put this into context so people will understand. The surplus in the EI fund is $600 million, a month not a year, above and beyond what it pays out. It is staggering. This again is on the backs of those who can least afford it, the most vulnerable.
Unemployed Canadians are being denied benefits while this huge surplus is burgeoning. This is how the fund has arrived at a surplus. It is not going back. There is no trickle down. The only trickle down in this country for working people, if it is not water that is getting trickled on them, it is something else that is getting trickled on them. It is no beach party to be a working Canadian these days.
How else did the government get this money? How else did it put itself into a surplus? It stole $25 billion from the EI fund. Today the minister had the gall and the audacity to announce that he is going to steal $30 billion from the surplus of the public service pension plan. The man has more gall than Ceasar. It is absolutely atrocious. The same piece of legislation, Bill C-78, also jacks up the premium.
If the plan and the actuarial research was such that the premiums needed to go up to meet the government's obligations, why would it not take it out of the $30 billion surplus that is already in the plan? Why would it raise premiums and still pull out the surplus? Should it not use the surplus to increase the benefits to these people?
Everybody thinks the public service pension plan is such a rich gravy train. In actual fact most of the beneficiaries in the plan are women given the nature of the public sector. The average woman with 20 years service collecting a pension makes $9,600 income from her public service pension plan.
If the government divvied that $30 billion up and gave it to the people who properly own it, it would amount to $30,000 per beneficiary. If we spread that out over our retirement years it may be $4,000 or $5,000 a year more. That would improve the quality of life for our retirees and our senior citizens.
I caution the minister responsible for the Treasury Board that he is going to unleash a sleeping giant. He is going to have a grey hair revolution, a blue rinse revolt. We do not take the senior citizens of this country lightly. We go there at our peril. Ask Brian Mulroney what happened to him when he tried to de-index the pension plan. They drove him to his knees and he had to withdraw.
The same thing is going to happen here. The momentum is already building up. The people are already talking about today's announcement of Bill C-78. My phone has been ringing off the hook. They are asking me if the government can do this, if it can take the surplus from their pension plan. Raising the premiums and pulling $30 billion out is reprehensible. It is going to lose. It is going to pay—