The helicopter deal, as my colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough has just indicated, there was a promise. It was a post-dated cheque that unfortunately was implemented. That cheque was not cashed but it bounced. The problem with that particular cheque is that people's lives were put into the balance. To this day we still do not have the proper equipment so that our servicemen can go out into the world and defend the peacekeeping requirements that we have as Canadians because this government does not accept the fact that our defence department requires those dollars.
Let us talk about this particular post-dated cheque. The finance minister said, and I quote, on page 12 that these things will be achieved by “legislating—not promising”. Canadians recognize that in order to put legislation forward, the House has to sit. We now hear that the reason the Prime Minister and the government is going to drop the writ is that everybody else is campaigning.
I just had an opportunity to speak with a couple of Liberal members on a radio talk show. Their spin to this was that everybody else is running for the election, so they might as well call one.
The Prime Minister has been declaring this election campaign ever since he has been trying to entice Brian Tobin back into the cabinet. That was successful, so he is now going to call the election.
Not only did the finance minister say that it would be legislated, which is not in fact correct, but he also has a caveat not only on debt repayment but on the tax reductions as well. This depends wholly and solely upon what the economy is going to do over the next number of months and years. It is a positive caveat but, nonetheless, it gives him a real opportunity to backtrack on a lot of those post-dated cheques and promises that have been made.
Let us talk about this particular document itself, this economic statement. It has listed a number of areas, the first one being health. I want Canadians to recognize right now that there is nothing different with health today than there was yesterday. There are no new initiatives. The initiative there has been announced ad nauseam. It has been announced many times. Even with the previous agreement that was negotiated with the provinces, we still do not come up to 1994-95 levels for health care funding.
Let us talk about health. The Liberal government arbitrarily took out of the health care system billions and billions of dollars without consultation with the provinces. Now, all of a sudden, it consults with the provinces to put back in the money it took out, which destroyed the system. That money is not yet into the system. That money will not be into the system for years to come. No one should think that Canadians are going to have the opportunity to take advantage of these health care dollars in the very near future.
Let us talk about the environment. The only new spending initiative in this statement was the environment. I want to congratulate the Minister of the Environment for having the ability to influence the cabinet and the finance minister. I say that somewhat tongue in cheek because there is a huge hole that was left in this economic statement, and that was respect to agriculture. The environment minister had the initiative and the influence. The minister of agriculture had none. There is not one word in this document about agriculture.
The agricultural industry right now is suffering through the worst crisis it has ever had to suffer through. We have lost 25,000 farmers in the last year. What do we have from the Liberals? They shrug and say “Well, that is the way it is. We put our best foot forward to try to protect the industry”. It is not enough. This document speaks to the fact that agriculture has absolutely no priority for this government. That has to change.
On debt reduction, the government suggested that $10 billion will come forward this year in debt reduction. There was a $12.3 billion reduction last year. It took this government until last month, almost six months after the year end, to discover it had this wonderful surplus. All of sudden, three or four days before an election, it has come to the good understanding that it now has a surplus it can put forward for debt reduction. It is nice to see that the finance department can finally come up with numbers.
One wonders why it happens today. Is it manipulative? Is it manufactured? Is it an election ploy? Of course it is, and Canadians know it.
What the government has not done is to put into place a plan for debt reduction. It holds out the carrot that in this budget year the government will reduce the debt, but nowhere in this statement does it speak to a well thought out, logical line item that is going to reduce the deficit for Canadians. Liberals do not like to do that. They like to take the money and use it to their best advantage. Canadians believe the best advantage is to reduce the debt in a well thought out, systematic plan, and that is where we should be going.