Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak this morning for the last time on Bill C-72, which implements certain measures set out in the 1998 budget brought down by the Minister of Finance.
Some hon. members will most certainly recall, and I will take it upon myself to remind the others, that in 1998 when the Minister of Finance released his budget, we in the Bloc Quebecois had some years previously encouraged the government to include certain measures that were included in that budget. Minor as they may have been, they were, in our opinion, a step in the right direction. Our position has not changed fundamentally with respect to those highly specific measures.
Generally speaking, however, given the broad range of possibilities presented to the Minister of Finance in 1998, which were included in the latest budget for 1999-2000, we did not feel the Minister of Finance had gone far enough. He claimed otherwise, however, concealing the real figures on the state of the public purse. With those real figures, we were able to state that the Minister of Finance could have go much further with the broad range of possibilities available to him, if he had any real compassion.
What are the budget measures from 1998 that we find today in Bill C-72, which we had encouraged and applauded at that time, and still do today?
There is the $500 increase in the basic personal credit. We supported this measure, although the Minister of Finance could have gone even further beyond the tiny step he took.
There is the surtax reduction for individuals, to a maximum of $250. This too is positive, but does not go far enough.
There is the home buyers' plan for the disabled. Finally, after several years of battles, the plan is now in place. We worked on this. A number of my Bloc Quebecois colleagues worked very hard representing associations of the disabled from their ridings so that special measures such as the home buyers' plan for persons with a disability could become a reality. We applauded this measure.
There are the tax credits for interest on student loans. Students too deserve support in their efforts to acquire knowledge and to enter the labour market. In this case too, the government has not gone far enough in supporting students in Quebec and Canada.
There is an increase in the child care expense deduction. This is a good thing.
As regards the lifelong learning plan and the matter of tax-free withdrawal of funds invested in a registered retirement savings plan, here again, when the Bloc Quebecois made public a few years ago an analysis of a possible and positive reform of personal taxes, we were the first to ask the Minister of Finance to use the funds invested in RRSPs for purposes other than retirement.
The rate of unemployment, as we have seen, has remained fairly high. We could also see that there were urgent needs, particularly in the case of middle income families, and that we should either think about using the funds invested in a registered retirement savings plan to create self-employment, to allow taxpayers to create their own jobs, or about helping them return to the labour market, through continuing education programs.
We were happy to see that measure included in the 1998 budget. In fact, we supported that initiative when the Minister of Finance made it public.
However, we do not agree with the minister—and he is certainly not deserving of any praise regarding this aspect of his 1998 budget—when he says he could not do more than the few positive measures found in Bill C-72, because this is utterly false.
When the Minister of Finance brought down his 1998 budget, he claimed there would be a zero surplus for each of the following three years. However, we were quick to react and set the record straight regarding the 1998-99 figures and the anticipated results for 1999-2000.
In 1998-99, the surplus will exceed $15 billion. We are talking about a $15 billion surplus for the fiscal year that ended on March 31. In the next fiscal year, the surplus will be $20 billion.
The Minister of Finance is still claiming there is no money available. But he forgets to mention that, under the Financial Administration Act, all the unexpected surpluses in the previous fiscal years were automatically used to pay off part of the debt. Last year, over $20 billion went directly to pay back part of the capital on the debt.
We have nothing against paying off the debt. That is not the point. However, when one has a surplus, one must make a number of decisions as a good manager of the public treasury. Instead of using a portion of the surpluses from last fiscal and a portion of the surpluses from this fiscal to help out middle income families, he could have provided more assistance for unemployed workers and students, given the precarious economic situation in which many families have been living in Quebec and in Canada since 1997-98.
Instead, the Minister of Finance presented an inaccurate picture of the state of the nation's finances. He then used this picture to make his argument that it was impossible for the federal government to provide any more assistance to middle income families, who have been having a hard time for several years now because of him.
What could the Minister of Finance have done during fiscal 1997-98, fiscal 1998-99 and the current fiscal year? He could have done something we have been asking him to do since the 1993 election, which is to devote some of his precious time to federal fiscal reform. Since 1993, the Bloc Quebecois has come up with two possible scenarios for reforming federal taxation, one for individual taxpayers and one for corporations.
When we released our two reports, the Minister of Finance even congratulated us on our good work, but he has done nothing about reforming federal taxation since.