Mr. Speaker, I am happy to share my time with the illustrious previous speaker, the member for Chatham—Kent—Essex.
I want to report that I took the time last night to fly back to my riding to conduct a morning after exercise with my business community. It was very positive. The people told me that they positively endorse the actions of the Minister of Finance and the government. They were very supportive of us.
On the way to my meeting, I happened to listen to Premier Harris blabbing away about what a terrible thing it is and so forth. When I got to the meeting I was happy to find the provincial member of parliament, who is also a Tory. I basically said that this was not about blaming each other for the problems of health care. I said that health care was a problem but that if it was all about money it would have been fixed ages ago. I said that it was about re-engineering the health care system.
We do not actually control the administration of the health care system. What was agreed on in that room, and I think with the government as well, is that we are willing to sit down with the provinces, but that we should stop all this nonsense about blaming each other. I think the people of Canada are fed up with it. I think they want us to get on with it. We have an aging society. I think we can deal with these problems. It is a commitment of the government to deal with the issue of health care now and in the future and it has made a significant downpayment on it.
I want to specifically thank the Minister of Finance who made a very bold and brave move in ending bracket creep. It is a lot easier not to deal with this. It is a lot easier to do interim measures that deal with bracket creep as it goes along.
Many people in our society do not understand bracket creep. Bracket creep is a complex tax issue. It is an insidious tax. Although inflation keeps going up, the Bank of Canada tries to keep it within one and three percentage points, and it has been very successful. The taxation system is not indexed to address this issue. As a consequence, people pay more taxes but in real terms are not making any more money.
Bracket creep is a very insidious tax, a tax by stealth, if I may. From a political point of view, it is easy to leave it alone because people do not understand it. People sort of know it is happening to them but they cannot visualize what it is because a lot of them do not fully comprehend inflation.
We took the leadership and the wherewithal to reduce bracket creep. It was a previous Tory government which said it would reduce the indexation to 3% and shove it to the people and let them pay the tax. This was the Tory government's idea of inventive taxation.
This country and our economy is very much poised on the brink of a major economical breakthrough. It is not just me saying that. We recently received a report from the Canadian E-Business Opportunities Roundtable. I will cite some of the things it has talked about in its report. It talks about Canada being one of the most connected countries in the world. The Minister of Industry, who is with us here today, has been very supportive of this agenda. This think tank of academics and high tech people are saying that Canada can be the most connected country in the world by the year 2004. It gives me great pleasure to be part of a governmental structure that is putting its money where its mouth is to make that happen.
We realize that over $28 billion in gross revenue will be generated from e-commerce, which translates into 95,000 jobs. That industry is poised to go even further. It is poised to reach $155 billion in revenue and create 180,000 jobs. Jobs are being created in the high tech sectors and Canada can be a major player in this. We are well on our way to making that happen.
A couple of things stand in our way. This roundtable and others have made mention of some of the problems that we face. We have to invest in research and development. The NDP talked about the medicare system and how we need to put more money into medical health care and medical research. We have done that in this budget.
The United States has 7.4 researchers per 1,000 population, while Canada has only 4.7. This tells us right away that we have a significant problem to deal with in trying to catch up with our major trading partner to the south. This budget addressed some of those things.
We have set aside $900 million over the next four years for research chairs in excellence. We have set aside $700 million to develop environmental technologies and $9 billion more to top up the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and genome research. We have made major investments in our research facilities. We are putting a lot of money into those areas where knowledge based workers get basic training so that they do not have to go south of our border to get opportunities.
We have all talked and heard about the whole concept of brain drain. With the brain drain the Canadian taxpayer is really subsidizing the U.S. economy. People might be amazed when I say that, but let us look at some of the statistics.
Twenty to thirty per cent of the graduates of the Calgary DeVry institute go to California, Washington, Colorado, Minnesota and Texas. Nortel Networks is telling us that it is losing 300 to 500 engineers per year to the United States and elsewhere. This is a huge growing industry. The telecommunications industry in Canada is worth $72 billion.
We are subsidizing the U.S. economy because of the people travelling across the border and going further south. I say this out of specific interest because I have two sons who are studying information technology. They are getting offers from south of the border and are thinking about possibly going there.
Why do people leave? People on the other side of the House say it is a simple, that we are taxing people too much and that is why they are leaving. In fact a lot of studies have concluded that taxation was about 18th on the list of very important items that people identify as reasons for leaving this country with their vocations. Probably one of the most important is opportunities to deal with new technologies, to get resources and so forth. It is in those areas we have to compete with our southern neighbours.
I say that we subsidize the American economy because of this. In the period from 1982 to 1996 it is estimated that we lost $6.7 billion by people leaving our country. Some $3.7 billion of that is related to our investment in the post-secondary education of those people who leave.
In 1996, 52,608 Canadians became temporary worker immigrants in the United States. This resulted in a loss to our tax base. This is the other side of it. These people are highly taxed people because they are making lots of money. It is why we have taken some initiatives to change stock options. I heard the NDP say it was terrible thing and that we should soak the rich. These people are not necessarily rich but they want opportunities. Stock option plans give them the opportunity to invest in their companies and be part of a success story. We want to be part of it as well.
In the budget there is a $500 million rollover for people selling stock in small and medium size companies. High tech companies can roll that over without paying capital gains. That is not letting the rich off the hook. It is just common sense to have that money reinvested in our economy to create jobs and opportunities for Canadians.
I am very happy to be part of a governmental system that has provided opportunities to push Canada along the road to success. We are getting our corporate tax rates down as well from 28% to 21% for small and medium size businesses. That is coming this year. For larger businesses it is over a four year period. These are ways to make our economy more competitive with that of our trading partners. I think it a positive and a good thing, and I am very supportive of it.