Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow the remarks of my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois although on some matters we may see things differently.
The budget that was brought down by the government can cause us to reflect on other times. It can cause us to reflect upon times when there was a commitment by the federal government in Ottawa to ensure that there were national standards across the country regardless of what community one lived in, regardless of what city one lived in, and regardless of what province one resided in.
It ensured that the harmony of Canada—and I think that is a word we can use with some sincerity—was kept in place because people across the country knew it was a generous country. As a country we shared with one another. Those provinces that were well-to-do because of certain government policies or certain natural resources shared with the provinces which found themselves not as well off for whatever reasons, because of government policies or because of transitions in industry and whatnot.
However, changes adopted by this government and begun by the prior Conservative government began to erode public confidence in the harmony and in the fact that whether one lived in rural Alberta, Manitoba or Saskatchewan one had entitlement to the same benefits as those who lived in urban centres.
When I discuss the new funding formula based on a per capita basis it leads into a discussion about who is entitled and who is not, and what is the real hidden agenda of a government that says it will pay so much money per person without taking into account all kinds of other factors such as unemployment in a particular region or health care concerns in one province or another.
It reflects a move toward an urban Canada. Not only the per capita funding but also the decrease in funding coming from the federal government over the last 10 years has forced the provinces to realign their priorities. The downloading of cuts on to many provinces has meant that they have had to slash health care, about which my colleague in the New Democratic Party has already spoken so eloquently, and to cut back in terms of education and social assistance.
The people listening to this debate or who will read Hansard should be aware that there was a time when the federal government cost shared with the provinces on a 50:50 basis the costs of social assistance. This to me was only fair in light of the fact that many government policies have a direct impact upon whether or not people are employed. If people are not employed they fall on to social assistance rolls, sometimes through no fault of their own.
I come from a community and province which have a great understanding of that. I can point to the recent announcement in January by the Minister of Natural Resources in my own community that will result in the end of the coal mining industry in Cape Breton, resulting in perhaps 1,100 people falling on to the provincial social assistance rolls.
The federal government has decided that it is no longer committed to the economic welfare of the people in Cape Breton. That is a decision it can make. It has a majority. It can decide if it wants to abandon those who are most in need. That appears to be a decision it makes with very little remorse and indeed very little concern.
What does that mean for the province of Nova Scotia as the government turns its back on men and women who have been employed in a crown corporation in my community for some 25 or 30 years? There are men and women, miners who have gone underground, who have injured themselves and are no longer able to retrain in the new technological workforce.
What does it mean when the government abandons such people in the cavalier and callous manner it has chosen? Many of these families will fall on to the provincial welfare rolls or provincial social assistance rolls.
What does that mean for the province of Nova Scotia? Not only does that province lose the $300 million a year spin-off from the Cape Breton Development Corporation mining industry. It means that it has to come up with the social assistance money to provide for these families that have been abandoned by the federal government.
Somewhere in the resources of a province that is already considered a have not province we have to find the money to provide for these families. That means that the province has to cut further in other areas of its jurisdiction. That means that the children of the families on provincial social assistance because of the abandonment of the federal government will go to schools with fewer resources than the children in Ontario. Perhaps I should say in Toronto because the northern parts of Ontario and Manitoba and the rural parts of Saskatchewan will find themselves suffering the same fate as we move to two solitudes. Those two solitudes will not be French and English but urban and rural. Because of the measures brought in by this budget people who reside in large urban centres will perhaps find themselves with the necessary resources to complete the social safety net that we have grown to know. By urban I do not mean cities of 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 or 60,000. I mean large urban centres of one million, two million, three million or four million.
In reality, those who live outside those urban centres will find themselves in a struggle with scarce provincial resources for things like education and health care. They will find themselves forced to migrate to the urban centres where those services may be provided.
That is essentially what is happening if we look at the country. This is why the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland was so adamant in his objection to the type of funding and the formulas proposed by the government. He understands that his province is suffering an outward migration, as are my own community, the province of Prince Edward Island and all other have not provinces.
Within provinces the rural communities are suffering from the migration of their young people, the greatest resource they have, to the urban centres, which I think is the underlying policy of this government.
I go back to what will happen in my community, to the province of Nova Scotia, as a result of this federal government's abandonment. I talked about the impact on schools. Let me talk about the impact on the environment. There was not a shred of evidence in the budget to indicate a commitment by the government to clean up the environment or to ensure that we have a sustainable environment for the next generation.
I appeared before the Standing Committee on the Environment to talk about a major concern of mine and I think of most Canadians, the tar ponds in Nova Scotia. I urged members of the committee to see the tar ponds for themselves. I was well received.
The chair of the committee asked a pointed question of me. He asked what was the municipality's commitment to clean them up. It told the chairman that the municipality had no money. The municipality just had most of its tax base hived away by the Minister of Natural Resources when he decided to lay off 1,100 coal miners in my community.
What is the municipal commitment? It is to try to sustain some sense of order in a community which finds itself reeling because of federal government's decisions reflected in its budget and budget priorities.
I want to make a few other points. There is a real lack of creativity in the budget. We talk about how to stimulate economic growth, but there was nothing in the budget to look at community economic development. There was nothing in the budget to talk about tax credits for investment in communities with high rates of unemployment. We are not only talking about the maritime provinces. We are talking about every province in this federation which suffers regions of high unemployment and unfair conditions.
Let me conclude by saying that I welcome debate on this legislation on behalf of the constituents in Sydney—Victoria. I urge the federal government to reconsider its commitment to ensuring that Canadians in every part of the country, whether they be urban, rural, eastern, western, French or English, have a national standard of which we can all be proud.