Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would like to say that I am sharing my time with the member for Durham. I am sure that the member for Durham and myself are nothing but proud. We are very proud of this budget. We think this is a great budget, and there is no question about it.
The House needs a touch of a history lesson. I remember in 1993 when my distinguished colleagues opposite were in the position of running a government; a government that was running a deficit of $42 billion; a government that in eight short years had tripled the debt in this country; a government that had unemployment at 11.5%; a government that did not know which way to go.
It was so bad that its members divided into three groups. Some members did not want to be called Tories any longer, so they decided to be Reform. Others decided they did not like what was happening in the Tory Party, so they called themselves the Bloc. The Tories remained with two people in the House.
When we stop to look at that historical time, we say thank goodness that a reasonable, well informed government came to the House to straighten out the ship. Quite frankly, it was the current Prime Minister, the Liberal cabinet and the Liberal government.
In a few short years nobody expected us to eliminate the $42 billion deficit, but that is exactly what we did. We did that and we did it by doing certain things: by reducing the public service, by cutting spending dramatically and by making sure that we were more efficient in everything we did.
Each and every person in this country knows that if a person has a budget, a family, a mortgage and a job, everything cannot be done. Everything cannot be completed in one year. We tracked budget after budget, first, to get the economics right, to get the trade moving in the country, to encourage business and to encourage programs which help all Canadians. That is exactly what we did.
Now we come to a parting of the way. We have managed well. The economy, the GDP in this country grew so well that we were number one in the G-7 countries last year. We know there is absolutely no question that the tax revenue in this country is high, and we are now able to share with Canadians.
Quite frankly, at this point in time I want to say thanks. I want to say thanks to every Canadian who has been supportive of us, to every Canadian who has bitten the bullet and to every Canadian who has put forth a tremendous effort to make sure we were supported in getting this ship going the right way. That has been the case. Every time I am in my riding there is not an individual who says “You guys are not doing a great job and the finance minister has not done a fabulous job at finance”. They are all supportive. They look at the trade missions that our Prime Minister has made and the increase in the economy and say it is just fabulous.
We come to a budget where we, as the Liberal Party, can say thanks to all Canadians for biting the bullet and we can return to them some of the tax dollars that have been increasing.
The indexing of the tax system is a major move which will return to low income Canadians, to families with children, a great benefit over the next four years.
Yes, it will not happen in one year. It will happen over four years. But the reality is that over the next four years those Canadian families will receive a 21% tax cut. We will see the average Canadian get a 15% tax cut and low income Canadians with families in the neighbourhood of 18%. Yes, tax cuts are there, but at the same time, not only are we de-indexing and putting tax cuts in place, we are moving into programs that people in the country have told me are important.
I just heard some members going on about health care. I am really surprised that they do not understand what is being done with health care right now. I am really shocked that they do not realize that the Minister of Finance's announcement yesterday put $3 billion more into health care this year. This is $3 billion more than what was there last year. Cash transfers last year were $12.5 billion. This year they are $15 billion. This year we will have the highest transfers to the provinces in the history of the country. There is no question about those facts.
We balanced. Yes, the $2.5 billion that went into the budget is added with the budget last year which put in several billion more. This is something that the opposition is not really taking into account or dealing with in a fair way. We have to know the facts. The facts are that we have increased the budget in health care by $3 billion in transfers to the provinces this year.
I think that the best spin doctor in the country, Mike Harris, was really misleading people in Ontario when he had his press conference today. The fact is, Mike Harris is getting more money than ever before.
The interesting point I noted a couple of days ago was when Dalton McGuinty, the Leader of Liberal Party in the Ontario caucus, pointed out very clearly that Mike Harris did not spend all the tax dollars that he got last year. He got a transfer of $1.5 billion of which he only spent $800 million. Half of that money is still sitting there and he is out complaining. What a deception to the people of Ontario. What a bad policy decision he made.
Quite frankly, I put Mike Harris in exactly the same bracket that I put Brian Mulroney. I will tell the House why. When Brian Mulroney was here he pumped up our debt, pumped up our debt and pumped up our debt. Well Mike Harris in Ontario has pumped up the debt, pumped up the debt and pumped up the debt to where right now Ontario is $19 billion further in debt than it was before. He is certainly a bad example to speak to Liberals about policies and directions that we need to follow.
I have one other issue that I wish to cover and I see that I have two minutes to do it. Something that is extremely important to the people in my riding is infrastructure: infrastructure funding for highways, infrastructure funding for municipal services and infrastructure funding for low income housing. There is no question that when I look at this budget, we are delivering those dollars big time.
Anybody sitting across the way knew that today was the day of the budget questions to the finance minister. What did members opposite do? They shrivelled in their seats. They were afraid to ask the minister questions. Each question they asked they looked pitifully bad.
This is a good budget. People across the country have said that it is a good budget. The finance minister knows it is a good budget. These guys were chicken to ask questions today on the budget. That is an interesting point.