Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate on Bill C-71, the budget implementation act, 1999. I am pleased to enter the debate because what I hear from the opposite side is not really reflective of what the 1999 budget is all about.
The Bloc Quebecois continue to whine about the per capita adjustment in the budget. Let me go over some of the history of the equalization payments and the CHST transfer.
Over the last number of years there has been a cap on the transfers from the federal government to the provinces of Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia to deal with health care, secondary education and welfare. That cap was there because of the economic prosperity in those provinces.
Now that we have returned to a point where we have some fiscal responsibility and have eliminated the deficit, it makes absolute sense to go now to an equal per capita payment on the CHST. It means that we are returning to equity.
A member of the Bloc Quebecois said that he would not support the aspect of the budget which dealt with bringing the budget back to a fair and equitable arrangement under the CHST. The provinces of Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta would be put on an equal footing with the other provinces. They have not been over the last many years. His argument seems to be totally illogical, but we all know the motivation of Bloc Quebecois members. They want to create an impression that Canada is not working and is unfair. Their agenda is to promote the single minded issues of Quebec.
Let us talk about equalization. If we look at transfers from the federal government to the province of Quebec, not only do we have the CHST which deals with health care, secondary education, post-secondary education and welfare, but we have equalization payments. The equalization payments for the province of Quebec in this budget are around $5 billion. They are more than 50% of total equalization payments given to all provinces and territories in Canada.
What a shame. What a disgrace. The province of Quebec was strong; it was an economic powerhouse before the separatists became engaged in Quebec. What a tragedy that Quebec, because it is a have not province now, has to participate in the lion's share of equalization payments from the federal government. Why? It is a poor province. Why is that?
Unfortunately, Quebec is a poor province because of the policies the Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois are implementing there. It is unfortunate. It is a tragedy.
I would like to talk about some of the positive aspects of the budget because members opposite totally ignore them. The member for Wild Rose spoke about the model he sees in budget building. In other words, a budget should reflect the priorities of the Canadian people.
Perhaps the member for Wild Rose did not read the last budget. It had $11.5 billion directed into health care, one of the largest single transfers under the CHST in modern history. Of that $11.5 billion, $3.5 billion goes to the province of Ontario. The people of Ontario were saying very loudly that we need to deal with health care. We have hospitals that are crowded. We have waiting lists.
The delivery of health care is a provincial responsibility, but we provide funding to the provinces through the CHST, the Canada health and social transfer. I will try to clarify some points around that.
Although the member for Wild Rose is from Alberta, he postulated that the reason health care was threatened in Ontario and other provinces was that the transfers from the federal government had been reduced. What a neat little theory. I hear it in Ontario from time to time, more often than I would like, and I would like to correct the record on it.
If we look at the reduced transfers under the CHST to the province of Ontario since 1993, they amount to less than $1 billion per year. In contrast I will outline what the Government of Ontario has done. It implemented tax cuts, which is great. We have been implementing tax cuts. We would like to implement more tax cuts.
In the last budget we had to redirect more money to health care because the Government of Ontario said explicitly and implicitly that it values tax cuts five times more than topping up federal transfer reductions. The 30% tax cuts in Ontario, and I gather Mr. Harris will announce more today, are great.
We will be announcing more tax cuts, but we have to keep topping up health care and education because the Ontario government keeps gutting those programs. One day, hopefully in the next budget or the budget beyond, the federal government will get into massive tax reductions.
We have already provided for $16.5 billion over the next three years but we need to do a lot more. When the Government of Ontario says it will reduce income tax by 30%, it costs the federal treasury about $5.5 billion a year. Our reductions in federal transfers to the Government of Ontario were less than a billion a year. That says tax cuts are five times more important than topping up the federal transfer reductions to the Government of Ontario.
It is very simple. When the member for Wild Rose talks about priorities, the Government of Ontario is reflecting those priorities. In the next month or so the people of Ontario will have their chance to express their view on whether that was the right set of priorities.
In the gallery are some school children, young adults from my riding of Etobicoke North. They attend Mississauga Private School. I would like to give them an insight into what the government is doing about youth employment.
The 1999 budget builds on the Canadian opportunities strategy announced in 1998. It makes available an additional $455 million over three years for the youth employment strategy used to create employment opportunities for young Canadians. That money is providing youth internships and summer jobs. In my riding of Etobicoke North right now I am signing off a Human Resources Development Canada program that will create 170 summer jobs.
We have also shown some leniency with respect to student loans. We allowed tax deductibility of interest on student loans in the 1998 budget. We allowed for deferral of repayment of student loans. We made tax provisions so that Canadian families could put more money into their registered education savings plans which are tax deductible, put together a little nest egg to help educate their children.
In the last budget the Prime Minister and our government announced the Canada millennium scholarship program of $1.3 billion or $2 billion. It is a huge amount that will be used to help students who have good academic records but maybe not the means to go through university or college. Our government is responding to youth.
I have seen youth internship work in my riding of Etobicoke North at Humber College which trains students to work in the tool and die industry. Our government subsidizes the company which hires them so that they can be trained on the job. They take classroom instruction and go to the tool and die company. Some 95% of those students get jobs. I have been at some of the ceremonies where students receive awards.
This budget is a good news budget. While the Bloc Quebecois keeps whining, if I can use that term, about the transfers, the province of Quebec is a net beneficiary and the province of Ontario is back to a fair and equitable transfer of funds under the CHST.