Debates of March 27th, 2000

The Budget

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member gave an example of a family of four making $17,000 that he alleges paid some $2,000 in tax. For a family of four with only $17,000 of income in one person's hands, when we take the basic personal amount plus the spousal amount, that is $13,000 sheltered already. That leaves $4,000. On $4,000 the combined federal and provincial income tax is only $1,000. That same family gets about $4,000 of child tax benefits and GST credits which means that on a net basis the family making $17,000 actually receives over $3,000 in its pocket and pays no tax. I believe the member should check his numbers. Maybe he would like to table the numbers in the House.

He also made a statement about a family making $40,000 and that under the new flat tax because there are four people and there is an exemption of $10,000, it pays no tax. There is no exemption for children. It is for the spouses so there certainly would be tax.

He started off his speech by saying the government should have had a budget that would reduce the deficit. If the member looks carefully at the books, he will see that we have not had a deficit for four years.

Would the member like to clarify for the House why he is giving numbers which are absolutely wrong?

[Deepak Obhrai, Reform, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question because it gives me an opportunity to tell him how wrong his accounting is.

Let us talk about that family. He said, and I repeat his words, that under $17,000 the family will be charged $1,000 but will get a GST credit. I want to tell him that over and above the $1,000 he is talking about, that family pays GST when making purchases. If they get a credit back, it is over and above the $1,000 that they are paid.

Let us go back to the GST issue the member was talking about. We can see how he is twisting numbers. It goes to show how the numbers are twisted by the government.

As for his question about the $40,000 and what is going to be paid and no exemption, I am talking about our proposal, not what is there right now.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure all of Canada is very proud of the member. I congratulate his party for what it is achieving for what it believes is its view of politics in Canada, although I disagree on most issues it has talked about.

One issue I do want to mention is that this budget clearly gave the top 6% wage earners in the country the biggest tax breaks over that period of time. That is a fact. He was talking about a 15 year old boy that had to pay a lot of taxes on his very first paycheque, yet the government gave the top 6% wage earners the highest tax breaks over the long term in the budget. It completely ignored the aspirations of health care, shipbuilding and farmers. I would like his comments on that.

[Deepak Obhrai, Reform, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I will take the compliment the member has given the Canadian Alliance and thank him very much. We do have a different approach on how to solve the problems.

He is absolutely right that it is the middle class Canadian taxpayer that is taking the heavy burden of paying taxes and giving money to the government for frivolous spending. I agree with him on that point.

I have some statistics. Britain recently reduced to 10% the maximum rate for low income taxpayers. Ireland is cutting its maximum corporate rate in stages to 12.5% by 2003. Australia is implementing substantial personal income tax cuts that will allow for 80% of Australian taxpayers to pay no more than 30% maximum.

We can see from this that everyone understands economics and that high taxes at the end of the day will kill productivity. Even the Minister of Industry agrees with that. I hope I have answered the question.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the budget speech.

Unfortunately I listened to the member for Waterloo—Wellington on the Liberal side when he made his presentation. I was rather disappointed in his comments. I thought they were quite inflammatory toward our party.

Before I get into the budget speech, the member for Waterloo—Wellington made reference to the background of our party, the Reform Party which is now the Canadian Alliance. I am speaking as a member of parliament from the Canadian Alliance party. I want the House and the Canadian people to know that.

The member for Waterloo—Wellington made some very damaging comments as far as I am concerned to the people of faith who trust in God and have faith in God. He made disparaging remarks toward people that built this country. I do not believe those comments should go unchallenged. I am surprised that the Speaker did not stand and put an end to what he was saying, so I am going to make reference to those comments.

He made very disparaging remarks to people of faith who trust in God and trust in Jesus Christ. I do not think that is acceptable nor should they remain unchallenged. They are the people who built this country. Others came afterward.

The Liberals may snicker and smile and I see some of them doing that. It is absolutely unjustified. I will make very direct reference to the comments of the member for Waterloo—Wellington. I will certainly stand up for the people in the country who believe in God.

Turning now to my speech on the budget, the budget that was handed down certainly has had very little attention in one respect. I know the members in the front row on the government side wanted more attention to be paid to it but something which overshadowed the budget was the boondoggle in HRDC. However, that was very much directed to the budget because how are funds managed when they are allotted to a specific area? How are they managed? That is more important than setting the budget itself. HRDC is a prime example. A lot of dirt is starting to stick to members on that side of the House as a result of the HRDC boondoggle.

A new budget was tabled. The last thing the government wanted to happen was to have anybody pay attention to HRDC and how that money was being spent. Look at the new budget. Members opposite said they were even offering some tax relief. Unfortunately that was all lost in the boondoggle at HRDC and rightly so because there is a principle involving morality in how the taxpayers' money is spent.

The taxpayer is looking very carefully at what the government is doing. The new budget is not prominent in their minds but how the money is being managed certainly is very prominent in their minds. I will get to the specifics in the area of defence, for which I am the critic.

The government allotted $1.9 billion extra to the defence department over three years. Defence has been in the news a lot over the last year and a half. It has suffered tremendously. It has been starved to death. There is a crisis in the quality of life of military personnel. There is substantial equipment rust out, so much so that one has to question just how combat capable our military really is.

The government came along and offered a $1.9 billion increase over three years. Incrementally that could be chewed up in three years just by doing tours overseas and doing a little on the quality of life issue faced by our military personnel. The amount is not a lot when it is divided over three years. It will not stop the rust out. It just prolongs the problem. There has to be a substantial infusion of funds to make our forces what they should be, combat capable, and to give them the necessary equipment to do the job.

I stand in the House as a member of the Canadian Alliance which wants to see some changes in that area. We know that the budget is inadequate and insufficient. There has to be a long range plan. There is no long range plan from this side of the House. Everything is done on an ad hoc basis. The long range plan is 15 to 20 years down the road. That is how far one should look. Believe me, the Liberals would have the opposition in total agreement with a long range plan for the military.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Depending on what the plan is.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

It would depend on what the plan is. The key point is to make our military combat capable. We ramp that up to 15 or 20 years and, as the member across the way has stated, we should include the reserves as part of that. I totally agree with that. The reserves should be factored in and should be part of the whole mobilization plan. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Our party has recommended that the budget be approximately 2% of the GDP by the year 2015. We ramp up to the year 2015 and that is where we would see the budget factoring in around 2% of the GDP. Do hon. members across the way know what the GDP is in our country right now? It is over $900 billion. In other words, to allow for a combat capable force, the budget should be almost double what it is right now.

Our budget is just a little over $10 billion. Our troop numbers are still being cut down. There is still talk about mothballing equipment. There is still talk about disbanding our reserve units that live and work among us, in our cities and in our towns, the most visible part of the military. That should not happen. The funding should be at a level that keeps the reserves active within the community. Unfortunately, so much that the military does goes unnoticed. I find that very unfortunate because we have a proud military history that we should all be teaching our children, if only they knew.

That is where the Canadian Alliance is coming from. We see an opportunity to really do something positive, to really build that feeling of nationalism higher in our country and that opportunity is now.

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the second member from the Canadian Alliance today. We can dress them up but we cannot take them anywhere.

What I basically heard from the first speaker today was that we on this side of the House are just a bunch of spenders and that the tax cuts we gave in the last budget were minuscule. The very same speaker then said that $2.5 billion more in health care was not enough and that they wanted more. Then I heard the second speaker stand and say that he wanted $8 billion more in the defence portfolio. Those members have no idea where any of this money will come from. They must think it is some kind of magic. We will give tax reductions and increase spending at the same time. It is just wonderful.

I heard them talk about the flat taxes. I believe it was eight years ago that the former Reform Party talked about flat taxes. Just about everybody, except the province of Alberta, which wants to experiment with this, has given up on the idea of flat taxes. Everybody knows that the great wonders that the members opposite want to come up with to modernize the system and reduce the administration of the taxation system are not feasible with flat taxes. We can do that in a progressive system as well.

The issue is that a flat tax, by and of itself, is simply shifting the tax burden from the lower middle income earners and the middle income earners to the higher income earners of this country. That is what the so-called CAs envision. By the way, I also object to their name. I happen to be a chartered accountant, as are some of my colleagues. These people are now calling themselves a professional designation by stealth. I suppose we all have to call them CAs as well but they certainly do not know much about economics.

Would the member explain how we are to keep ramping up all this money and at the same time reduce taxes and have a responsible approach to government?

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's question and it deserves a very direct answer.

The member is wondering where the money will come from. Why does he not ask the HRDC minister how she has such a handle on her department? One place we could certainly address as far as waste and abuse is the HRDC department. To whom does all the billions of dollars go?

I see a great need in the country for enforcement all the way around. Both the RCMP and the military have suffered greatly at the hands of the Liberal government. They barely have an identify left. The military, the RCMP and other enforcement agencies in Canada have been starved of funds and the member dares to ask what more the government can do.

Accountability and priority are the keys. What is the priority? We have a need for security. We live in a global environment with a lot more threats. Where better to spend money than on our military and our enforcement agencies in the country?

The member should look carefully at what his own cabinet is doing when it spends money. He should ask his own constituents what they think. If the member is in touch with his constituents he will come to the quick realization that the money is not being put to good use.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague for some of the points he has made with regard to the Department of National Defence.

I would also like to ask the member, in response to the hon. member opposite, for his comments on what the auditor general said about $17 billion not being properly accounted for. We need to recognize that it involves not only the HRDC department but also EDC. What is happening here?

I wonder if my hon. colleague could briefly address that question.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, I could go on for some time when it comes to the issue of accountability. It has been a concern to the Canadian people for a long time.

What are the priorities on this side of the House? I do not care whether the member is looking at EDC money, HRDC money, CIDA money or any other department where money is allotted, what are the checks and balances in the system that would allow for that money to be spent in a fair and equitable way? Unfortunately that does not exist on that side of the House.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join in this debate. I followed it this morning and it has been very interesting. I will make a quick mention about the member who just spoke.

I probably disagree more than I agree with the policies of that member's party but certainly the issue of the reserves is tremendously important to rural communities. Any time I can sing the praises of the Brockville Rifles I will take the opportunity to do so. Had it not been for the reserves during the ice storm, we would have been in real trouble.

I will now turn my attention to what the budget says about the government's environmental agenda. Over the next four years the Government of Canada will invest $700 million into a variety of environmental initiatives. Most of the money is earmarked for climate change and the remaining for pollution control, species at risk, habitat protection and the development of environmental and sustainable development indicators.

Let us take a closer look at some of these initiatives. The government will invest $25 million into a green municipal enabling fund to help municipalities and communities assess their environmental needs. One hundred million dollars will go into a green municipal investment fund to encourage private sector innovation in areas like waste management and water conservation. I think this is a very important expenditure, not necessarily in terms of the amount of money, because as we can see from the debate this morning, we can always argue about the dollars and the amounts. The green municipal investment fund is a roll out of the program that was started in Toronto, the Toronto atmosphere fund. What it essentially does is make money available at competitive interests rates for retrofitting energy efficient technologies.

Why I think this type of expenditure is appropriate is that the current markets, if we look at the payback requirements for business, the return on investment that some of these high tech stocks are giving us in the stock market, the return on investment that businesses will require for investments is perhaps a year at the most. These environmental technologies are much longer term investments. Without some sort of parallel money that is not going against investment options that pay back in less than a year, these things would never be done.

We need to invest in these technologies because we need to demonstrate that they work. We need to demonstrate that there are economic benefits to some of these new types of technologies, otherwise we will never get them off the ground and off the drafting table.

There is also $100 million for a sustainable development fund to develop new technologies, particularly in the areas of clean burning coal and new fuel cell development. In addition, $210 million over three years will go to the climate change action fund, $60 million to the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science and $100 million over the next four years to help developing countries deal with climate change.

I guess I should point out at this point that I will be splitting my time with the member for Ottawa Centre.

The government will also put in $22 million over three years to reducing pollution, to stabilize at $9 million per year thereafter, as well as $8 million per year to improve the environmental health of the Great Lakes, and part of the infrastructure program is something being referred to now as green infrastructure which will go to sewer and water and the types of infrastructure projects that will result in improvements in the quality of people's lives in terms of the quality of the water that they are drinking. These investments are very timely and definitely significant.

The ministers of energy and the environment will sit down in Vancouver at the end of this month and again in the fall to hammer out the national implementation strategy on climate change. The Kyoto file is a very interesting file. If we can come up with a strategy that is effective for dealing with our greenhouse gas emissions we will go a long way to taking a different kind of look at our environmental policy, a longer term look that tries to align society's interest with the market's interest so that we are not always at odds.

Some critics have said that $700 million falls short of what is required. I would argue that we will never have enough money if we do not spend our money wisely. Almost three-quarters of a billion dollars is certainly a good start.

Let us take highways as an example. The transportation sector is the single largest contributor to Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 27%. How do we approach such a challenge? Our highways and infrastructure are fundamental to a competitive economy. The shipping of goods and services back and forth is the key to why we are enjoying such growth in our export markets. Rather than putting restrictions on the use of highways, we could make changes to the way they are built.

I had a representation from the concrete manufacturers that showed me data that said that if we made highways, especially the ones that are heavily travelled by trucks, out of concrete as opposed to asphalt that it would significantly reduce the amount of fuel that would be used. I think those kinds of creative approaches could turn this ship around. I think all of us would agree that we are headed in the wrong direction.

I now want to spend my time on something that is very near and dear to my heart. It is an item in the budget that did not get a lot of attention. It was the announcement by the Minister of Finance that $9 million will go to the development of a set of sustainability indicators. I feel that there should have been much more fanfare associated with this announcement.

At present public policy is pretty much based on the assumption that expanding economic activity or growth is the only road to well-being. This may have been accurate at one time but things have changed.

If we measure the rate of a baby's growth it will tell us a lot about how well that baby is doing but we cannot take that measure and apply it to an adult and get useful information. We saw exchanges just now about numbers, about money, about GDP. Is anyone talking about whether Canadians are happy? I think the GDP as an indicator of well-being falls well short of what I think Canadians expect their governments to adopt.

It makes no distinction between money spent on education and money spent on cleaning up after automobile accidents. While GDP mixes good expenses with bad, it takes no account of the unpaid work in homes and by volunteers in our communities. If we did not have that, our well-being would be significantly affected.

GDP fails to recognize any changes in the availability of natural resources. My background is one of business. I have never hugged a tree in my life but I may start. If I could draw a business analogy, we run the country off the income statement. When I say “we” I mean governments at all levels. We do not have a balance sheet. We are assuming that we can use resources and count the economic activity that it generates. In no way are we reconciling these accounts. In no way are we keeping books for future generations. We have bought into the notion that growth is good and that the GDP is a measure of our well-being. I really think we need to take another look at it.

Making decisions primarily on the information provided by the gross domestic product is like driving a bus and just staring at the speedometer. The GDP speedometer has its place but it does not explain some matters of consequence. The Atlantic cod is a classic example. The fisheries contribution to GDP was rising steadily, right up to the day the stocks disappeared. Another instrument on the dashboard, something that gave us some indication of the health of the stocks, could have provided information which would have stimulated action to steer clear of the disaster that followed.

The dashboard of any modern society should be equipped with a broad range of instruments to indicate changes in natural resource stocks, pollution levels, biodiversity, the durability of goods, employment satisfaction, the quality of education and health care, leisure time, unpaid work, crime and other factors of consequence. The political reality is that while for years politicians have driven the bus looking only at the speedometer, the people are looking out the windows. They are getting more and more concerned.

What we count and what we measure signifies what we value. When all we count is money, talk about the environment and social cohesion does not produce action. When we legitimize other factors by measuring and reporting on them in our core measure of progress they become visible. This visibility enables anyone to see how policies and actions affect the measures.

Increased awareness of causes and effects will naturally incline decision makers to consider how their decisions might affect the measures, and management processes will evolve to seek well-being in a broader context. Once we understand the possibilities that improved measures offer, we will never again accept a system that relies on a narrow economic perspective. It is not unlike the ISO process that businesses have gone through. It is simply accountability and transparency that the country has never seen before.

In conclusion, long after we have spent our tax cut on the public policy implications of developing and reporting on a set of sustainable indicators, we will be paying dividends for not only Canadians today but for every generation that follows us.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great pride to my hon. colleague and good friend from the backbenches of the Liberal Party. He took a turn in the debate on the budget and talked about initiatives and issues on the environment which are very serious to the New Democratic Party.

I know the hon. member has a private member's bill before the House now which I support. It is a great initiative. I only hope that the frontbench of his party will give the attention to that bill that someone like me might give to it.

My question is for the hon. member. With environmental legislation and regulations going through wherein provinces and municipalities have so much of a say in how they are incorporated, how does he see working closely with provinces and municipalities on this budget or future budgets of any government?

For example, in the Halifax-Dartmouth harbour we are pumping raw sewage into the harbour. We have done that for over 200 years. How does he propose that his government would work with that municipality to keep it in public hands and to maintain the protection of our waters, harbours, bays and inlets?

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for an interesting question. When I look at the budget and the approach of the government to the whole issue of the environment, not necessarily in a partisan way, by earmarking the infrastructure program in the short term to go to green projects we are sending a very clear message that although new city halls might be nice we do not have enough money to go down that road like we did in the last one. We have to earmark for things like sewer and water.

I keep coming back to the larger issue. As the hon. member said I do have a private member's bill but this is certainly not my idea. I caught the wave of the indicators because I saw the inherent logic of it.

We can engage Canadians. Canadians can have a measure to find out if their well-being is increasing or decreasing in things like literacy, mortality and mobility rates. Statistics Canada already keeps track of many of these things. The first step is to look historically at the environmental movement. I say this as an outsider. It has constantly butt heads with economic factors. It must be very frustrating to be an environmentalist because money does not talk. It swears and they keep losing, losing and losing.

We have to step back and engage Canadians. Let us start reporting on the state of the environment in Canada. If we can engage Canadians then governments can be dragged along, kicking and screaming. They will follow. That is why I underscore the significance of the indicators announcement. It is a long term strategy but it will go a long way to changing our approach so that we align economics with the best interest of society and the environment.

I will give the member an example. Germany has a program called lifetime products stewardship. If one builds a washing machine, sells it and it breaks, one has to take it back. It does not go to a landfill site. Let us look at what has happened over time. If we take a look at the workings of a washing machine, a very large percentage of the parts is being recycled. The bracket that holds the motor is the same bracket that holds the compressor in a refrigerator or the picture tube in a television set.

For people watching at home, they should turn their sets around and look at how many different screws are in their televisions. That is built-in obsolescence. That all ends up in landfill sites. As a result of the law in Germany they have better products. They are cheaper to make. They last longer. They are cheaper to repair. At the end of the day the environment wins, the economy wins and society wins because consumers are paying less for goods.

We have gone far enough with the notion that the economy and the environment are at loggerheads. We need to shift the sands and take a different approach. It starts with Canadians being informed about problems and priorities. A set of indicators, not unlike what the auditor general reports on finances every year, will engage Canadians. They will demand that their politicians start making decisions that are in the best interest of not only the economy but society and the environment as well.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to speak to the budget items before the House today. I remember when we were on the opposition side and the government of the day was running huge deficit after huge deficit, day after day. The economy was at an all time low. We had a high inflation rate, a high unemployment rate and high interest rates.

When we came to power back in 1993 we were faced with a situation where we had in excess of a $42 billion deficit, a huge debt, very high unemployment and high interest rates. Less than five years in office we were able, with the leadership of the Prime Minister, his cabinet and his caucus, to bring things under control, turn things around and not only control the deficit but generate a surplus, not only beat down inflation but bring it to a very low level and keep it under control. For the first time in more than 30 years we were able to bring unemployment to an all time low.

We would not have been able to do that on our side alone and by ourselves. We needed the co-operation of the Canadian public. We needed the co-operation of those in the private sector, the public sector and all levels of government.

As the Prime Minister has always indicated, Canadians collectively, along with the government, managed to get us out of the slump and to meet the economic challenge. To do that we had to make a lot of sacrifices. We had to cut spending and get rid of many things we used to do in the past that because of the financial situation we were unable to do any more. In some cases we had to pass on responsibilities of the Government of Canada to others who may be able to do it as well as the government was doing before, and even in some cases better.

I want to talk about the areas of health care and education. Now that we have our house in order and the government has been able to get the financial situation under control, it is time for us to start investing. I want to be frank. I am not interested in seeing the government throw a load of money at the problem to satisfy a particular premier or province. My constituents are not interested in that. They are demanding a level of accountability and a level of responsibility. The two go hand in hand every time the Government of Canada hands down transfer payments to a provincial government or other levels of government. My constituents want accountability.

When we talk about transfer payments for health care and education, my constituents do not want the federal government to pass on money to provinces that will not effectively and efficiently use the money for those purposes. They want them to use it efficiently and effectively. They want the provinces to respect the five principles of health care. They want the provincial governments to move forward, to get out of the past and into the future, to stop talking about issues such as primary care and to start talking about issues such as the way we improve and deliver services, access, and accountability to Canadians.

The way we used to deliver services is not applicable any more. In the past our population was not aging at the speed that it is aging now. By the year 2010 or 2015 we will have double the number of senior citizens as we had in the past or have in the present. We have an aging population and as such we need to move the health care system from an institutional type of setting into the community where we will have more home care support and services, more services through community centres and through frontline agencies and organizations. Then we could provide more and better services than we had in the past or what we are doing now.

If it means we have to bring the provinces, the territories and other levels of government kicking and screaming into the this century, my constituents would support the government and continue to support it 100%. The status quo is simply and purely not working any more. We have to introduce new ways to provide services to Canadians across the country in the areas of health care and education.

That is why the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health have called on the provincial ministers of health and the premiers of the provinces to come together to talk about ways to deliver the health care system in a more efficient, effective and responsive way. Then Canadians would receive a return on their investment and the appropriate service they so much deserve and need.

It is not a question of simply increasing the transfer payments to the provinces and that is the end of it, the problem is solved. Far from it. I bet we could fill this House and five houses on top of it with hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions, but unless the structure is changed and the way we deliver those services is changed we will have the same problem 15 or 20 years from now. We could have a band-aid solution and we could buy our way out of the problem in the short term, but in the long term we have to look at the structure of the problem.

The same thing applies in the area of education. When we talk about education we talk about young children who have not yet reached the educational system, or those who were born three, four, five or ten years ago who are entering the system. If we want to reform the educational system, that is the area which must be our priority. That is the area into which we have to put our investment.

After the election of 1993 this government made an unequivocal commitment that, should the provincial governments agree, we would have a national child care program whereby all of the different partners would come together. Guess what? One province after the other stood to denounce the federal government for intruding into provincial jurisdiction, yet they turned around and said “But give us the money”.

Canadians do not want it to be handed down from the federal government to the provincial governments without any accountability, without a tangible partnership that we can measure and see. To that extent, here again the Prime Minister has called on the provincial premiers to come together to develop a national strategy to deal with our children and youth, and to have a system which responds to the needs of Canadians.

Those are the two challenges facing us in the days, months and years to come. My colleagues on both sides of the House of Commons have a responsibility and a mandate to go to their provincial colleagues and stress to them the importance of working collectively as partners to respond to the needs of Canadians, not to stand in the House and say that if we spray more money on the problems the problems might go away.

Points Of Order

[John Bryden, Liberal, Wentworth—Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I understand that in my absence from the Commons the Speaker ruled on a name change for the Reform Party to the Canadian Alliance.

Madam Speaker, I feel this impinges upon my privileges as an MP because I ran against the Reform Party in the last election. Even Elections Canada does not recognize the name Canadian Alliance. Those people on the other side are changing their party name in midstream.

Madam Speaker, I would ask you, surely the Speaker should consult the table officers to see whether or not a proper resolution of this parliament should be passed before this name change is authorized and recognized by the Speaker.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Very well, I will take the hon. member's point under consideration. We certainly will come back to the House with an answer.

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

The Budget

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Madam Speaker, my distinguished colleague, the member for Ottawa Centre, boasted naturally, as he should and by the book, about the latest budget of the Minister of Finance. However, formulating a budget is not the be all end all; the money still has to be well managed.

Quite randomly, the HDRC internal auditors pulled out 459 files, for a sort of Léger and Léger poll, and in 80% of them, they found malfeasance or dubious cases.

If we extrapolate, the figure mishandled by the Department of Human Resources Development could be between $1 billion and $3 billion.

Would the member for Ottawa Centre agree to have an outside inquiry examine the entire 11,000 files of the department, in order to shed light on this administration?

Doing so could reveal that amounts of $1 billion or $3 billion were not mismanaged, given to friends of the government as was the case in the riding of Brant, or Cornwall or Saint-Maurice, the riding of the Prime Minister.

It is very embarrassing for a government to be seen to be badly managing the Department of Human Resources Development, as it penalizes the poor workers, only 42% of whom qualify for employment insurance.

Would my colleague from Ottawa Centre agree to having a full and exhaustive inquiry—we know that 14 RCMP investigations are currently underway—so we may discover from each of the HRDC files from the past four years whether public funds have been properly managed?

Members are certainly aware that a good budget warrants having 100% of the funds well managed. The government has no right to spend public money left and right essentially to buy votes in the next election.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, first, we must pay careful attention to the fact that there are two issues involved here. One is the fact that the hon. member wants greater transparency.

As regards that aspect, the auditor general has already said that he was taking a close look at these files. He will submit his report by the end of the year.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, I can assure you that, here in Canada, we manage our affairs much more effectively than anywhere else in the world. The Canadian government is very transparent, much more so than any other in the world. I am convinced that nowhere in the world, including among the provinces, territories, North American countries, African states, European nations or Asian countries, is there a more transparent government than this one.

The other issue raised in the House is that the other opposition party wants the government to do its share once and for all in terms of assistance to the Canadian regions and ridings that need such help.

I am asking the hon. member if he believes that this government should stop helping Canadians, which would deprive them of opportunities, of a bridge, of better options generally.

I can assure him that, in my riding of Ottawa Centre, people want the government to continue to take care of public money as it has been doing for the past six years. My constituents are very pleased by the way this government has been managing public finances. They also want to tell the hon. member that they would rather wait until the end of the year and read the auditor general's report.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, before beginning, I must say that I was a bit surprised at the superlatives used by the member for Ottawa Centre. I urge him to tone down the hype. In the coming weeks, his government may be shown to be not as transparent and lily-white as he would like us to think.

It is a bit much to be told that things are better run here than anywhere else in the world, or in any other province, when we know that the financial difficulties the provinces are facing are largely the result of this government's budget decisions.

Every year, I take a certain pride in rising in the House on behalf of my constituents to speak to the Minister of Finance's budget statement. It is my duty as a parliamentarian to respect the sacred principle of responsible government for which our brave Patriotes fought more than a century and a half ago.

Once again, in his budget for 2000-01, the Minister of Finance has turned a deaf ear to the expectations and concerns of the public. Yet last fall the Bloc Quebecois had taken the trouble to consult members of the public in order to find out what they thought about how the government was spending their money and to relay this back to the minister.

I would like to take this opportunity to warmly thank all the social and economic stakeholders—members of the business community, university students, union representatives and community workers—in Verchères—Les-Patriotes and throughout Quebec who were good enough to share their views on this issue during the prebudget consultations and exchanges that took place after the budget was brought down.

I would particularly like to mention the contribution made in Verchères—Les Patriotes by representatives of the Association des gens d'affaires de Boucherville, the Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu and Montérégie Association féminine d'éducation et d'action sociale, the Carrefour jeunesse-emploi de Marguerite d'Youville and the Lajemmerais Centre local de développement. However, the fact of the matter is that the Minister of Finance paid very little attention to what they had to say.

Tax relief, particularly for the middle class; an increase in transfer payments to the provinces for health, postsecondary education and income support; lower EI premiums and an improved EI system; creation of a solid investment program, particularly with respect to municipal infrastructures; and gradual and balanced debt reduction are all approaches the public would like the government to take.

Despite the feigned focus on the objectives defined by the public as priorities, none has been attained. This government has made much of reducing taxes but has, in actual fact, done very little. With the considerable latitude available to the Minister of Finance, we might well have expected to see some response to the expectations of those who, like the Bloc Quebecois, have called for a tax cut in the order of $6 billion this year.

With anticipated surpluses of close to $150 billion by the year 2004, federal tax reductions for Quebec will in fact total only $3.3 billion over three years. In comparison, the tax cuts announced a few days later by the Government of Quebec are far more significant, despite the infinitely more modest resources available to Quebec.

The federal plan to reduce the tax burden focuses mainly on indexed tax tables and the progressive elimination of the 5% surtax, and these measures will not do much for the least well off and the middle class.

It needs to be pointed out particularly that the indexation of tax tables does not constitute a tax cut. It is solely intended to avoid having the taxpayer's taxes raised merely because the tax tables are not indexed. This is something we have been calling for since 1994. After pocketing close to $17 billion too much, the government has now decided to finally act and to index the tax tables.

The situation as far as the transfer payments to the provinces are concerned is not much better. To enable them to better meet the crying needs in health and education, the provinces were expecting a federal reinvestment of about $4.2 billion, this year, in social transfers. Instead, the Minister of Finance chose to allocate a measly $2.5 billion over a four-year period. That amount is not enough to make up for the $32.5 billion approximately in cuts made by the federal government since 1994 to transfers to the provinces, including over 50% in Quebec.

The government deprived the provinces of $32.5 billion, then gave them a measly $2.5 billion over a four-year period. And it expects them to be grateful.

In spite of reduced budgets, partly because of the federal cuts, this year Quebec will invest 14 times more new money in health than the federal government, and eight times more in education. This is significant.

And what about the federal government's tendency to get involved in provincial jurisdictions in an increasingly insidious and underhanded fashion?

In order to cover its intrusions in education, for example, the federal government talks about knowledge economy, the development of new skills, the importance of skills and knowledge, research assistance, technological innovation, and it sprinkles millions of dollars of public money in various foundations and trusts, which it created itself and which are not subject to parliamentary scrutiny, instead of transferring the money directly to the provinces, to allow them to manage it based on their specific needs and priorities.

As it invests hundreds of millions of dollars in these foundations and trusts, almost guaranteed sources of dispute with the provinces, citing the sacred challenge of research and technological innovation, it forces the Tokamak project to close by withdrawing the modest $7.2 million it had invested annually in the past.

We wonder whether the federal government has not withdrawn from the most important energy research and development project in Quebec, simply because it could not handle working in partnership with the Government of Quebec. No, really, it is distressing to watch the federal government strutting about as it has after such a disappointing budget.

Employment insurance is another case in which the federal government cuts a pitiful figure. It will continue in fact to pocket billions of dollars on the backs of the unemployed. Again this year, the government will be taking in over $5.5 billion, thanks to the surpluses generated by the employment insurance fund. The chief actuary pointed out that, by the end of 2000, the government will have drawn off $31.5 billion in surplus since the start of its mandate from the employment insurance fund.

This actuary also said that an amount of between $10 billion and $15 billion would be more than ample to meet any increase in costs arising from a recession. So, the Minister of Finance has taken between $15 billion and $20 billion too much out of the pockets of workers and employers over the past seven years, thus depriving six unemployed people in ten of the benefits of the employment insurance plan.

It is interesting to note, in this regard, that the minister acknowledged candidly in his budget speech that “these rates will keep coming down to the point where they cover just the costs of the EI program itself”. What a candid admission of guilt. The minister acknowledges that the rates are higher than those needed by the program.

What is keeping him from immediately lowering the contribution rates so that they just cover the program's requirements and no more, starting right now? Perhaps instead he should improve the plan by increasing benefits and making eligibility criteria more flexible so that benefits will be available to more than the two young unemployed persons out of ten who can currently qualify?

When one realizes that the government has reaped more benefit out of the employment insurance plan than the unemployed have in the past six or seven years, there is good reason to ask some serious questions.

The provinces and the municipalities which have been demanding the implementation of a new infrastructure program from the federal government will also be disappointed. The Bloc Quebecois recommendation to the federal government was for an investment of $3 billion this year into infrastructure related projects. In order to meet the numerous expectations in this area, part of this funding could have been invested in a support program for the shipbuilding industry.

The municipalities were calling for $1 billion annually over 15 years to be invested by the federal government in infrastructures. Ottawa turned a deaf ear and plans to inject a mere $100 million into infrastructures this year. The municipalities will get this $1 billion from the federal government in the long run, but over six years only, not annually as they had requested. Contrary to all expectations, the federal government's efforts seem to be equally timid and insufficient as far as reimbursement of the debt is concerned.

To conclude, this budget gives us the impression that the federal government is trying to get the public to swallow a sugar pill. They would have us believe that they have addressed the real problems and responded to the real expectations of the public by really laying into public finances.

Since 1993, close to $80 billion have flowed into the coffers of this government, which passes itself off as a good manager, without its having to make the least effort. It leaned on others to come up with the surplus that it now has and that it is doing such a bad job of administering: $31 billion were siphoned away from workers and employers at the expense of the unemployed; the provinces kicked in their $32 and a half billion as a result of cuts and have been wrestling with major problems in their health care and education systems every since; and, because the federal government refused to index the tax tables, another $17 billion quietly built up in its coffers.

And how are all these groups that made it possible for the federal government to get its fiscal house in order thanked? In dribs and drabs.

By distributing its favours right and left, the Liberal government has shown that it is not yet free of its old spend-thrift demons. By handing out money all over the place, it has made the decision not to focus its efforts on a limited number of budgetary items that are felt to be priorities, with the disappointing result that none of its investments have any real impact.

Just as a tree can be identified by the fruit it bears, so can a good government be identified by its actions. There is no getting around the fact that, with this budget, Ottawa has once again put itself on the map as the capital of broken dreams and promises.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member went over a number of items. I started to add them up and I lost track of the number of ways he wanted to spend additional money.

He talked about additional tax cuts. He said that the deindexation was not a tax break for Canadians because it had to be done. He wanted more. He said there were no real tax breaks and he wanted more tax breaks. I do not know how much he would like to add to the spending of the government in terms of reduced taxation. He talked about EI, another $5 billion to deal with the national surplus. He talked about another $1 billion for shipbuilding. He also talked about the need for health care spending.

The hon. member should consider that the revenues coming into the government through income taxes, payroll taxes, et cetera, all go into the same pool of funds. The funds that Canadians contribute are available to take care of programs. Right now we are presenting a balanced budget. With that balanced budget the member is saying he wants $5 billion here, another $5 billion there, another $1 billion for shipbuilding and another amount, I do not know how much as he was not specific, on health care.

If those expenditures or tax reductions are to be delivered, the money has to come from somewhere. If the member is suggesting that there should have been another $5 billion to $15 billion expended in the budget for tax reduction, EI reduction, health care, et cetera, what would he cut year after year after year in order to fund those additional expenditures or tax reductions?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously, the hon. member heard my speech, but he did not understand it.

He claims that I said that the government's budget does not include tax cuts. He is surprised that I would make such a statement. I did not say that the budget does not include tax cuts and I ask the member to listen to my reply, because it might help him not only hear it, but also understand it.

I never claimed that the budget does not include tax cuts. I simply said that, based on the public's expectations, these tax cuts were inadequate.

It is a fact that the indexing of tax tables is not a tax cut. This only means that taxes will not increase next year, as they otherwise would have with non-indexation. This is, for all intents and purposes, much more a freeze than a cut. In the long term, it obviously means savings for taxpayers, but it is not a tax cut.

Also, the reduction of the 5% surtax will benefit the rich much more than the middle class and the poor, who have been the primary targets of the Liberals' initiatives to put their fiscal house in order, since 1994.

The member asked where the money would come from. He seemed to be implying that I was proposing an increase in spending. I want to make it clear to him that I never suggested investing $1 billion annually in a shipbuilding policy. What I said is that the municipalities and the provinces were asking for annual investments of about $1 billion, over a 15 year period, in infrastructures. The government is obviously not meeting these expectations.

Part of this money could have been used in conjunction with a policy on shipbuilding, a policy on the shipbuilding industry, as all the premiers requested.

I come back to the member's question about where the money will come from. I say quite simply to our Liberal friends that they should not fall back into their bad old habit of sprinkling their generosity about here and there, they should focus the budget on a number of priority items, such as tax reductions and transfers to the provinces.

The government has decided to invest in foundations and trusts outside parliamentary control and appoint as members of their boards individuals over whom it has good control. These trusts will intervene in the fields of education or health care or both.

Instead of millions being invested in a given trust, we see that nearly 80 of these trusts and foundations have been created since 1994. The government should stop investing millions of dollars here and there, take all this money and consolidate it in a single transfer payment to the provinces. They are best equipped to deal with the problems facing them in the fields of health care and education.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to support what my colleague from Verchères—Les-Patriotes said at the start of his speech about the hon. member for Ottawa Centre. I have heard some questionable praise of this government and of this country, which is “the best in the world” and which is totally without scandal or anything else negative.

This is really hiding one's head in the sand like an ostrich. The house is burning down, but “Everything's fine, just great, so worry not”.

I find it almost boring to take part in this debate on the budget, because it ought to pass without any comment. The good news that has been so long awaited has been put off until later. It has been put off until the next time there is an election campaign, this fall; maybe they will make it part of their platform. This is why they have put off the tax cuts until 2001 and 2002. Taxes will be lowered later; we will have to wait. As I have already said, it will likely be announced during the election campaign.

Yet the federal government had a clearly sufficient margin of manoeuvrability by this year to step up its efforts to reduce the tax burden. They are telling the taxpayers to be patient. It will take another few years for individuals, families and businesses to really be able to profit from the tax breaks announced by the Minister of Finance.

As for the indexation of the tax tables, the Bloc Quebecois has been calling for this measure ever since 1993. Since 1994 the Minister of Finance has got $17 billion from the pockets of taxpayers. That is clear: $17 billion.

Why did he not do it earlier? Because it was very lucrative. The federal government did not index the tax tables earlier because this was how it came up with $17 billion.

I would point out to those listening, who are perhaps not familiar with this issue, that indexing the tax tables does not mean that taxes will go down. My colleague explained this earlier. It merely means that next year an individual's taxes will not go up. Indexing the tax tables merely means that people will not pay more.

The big losers in this budget are the provinces. In fact, the Minister of Finance refused to go along with the premiers' urgent demand for a permanent increase in the cash portion of the social transfer intended for health, social assistance and postsecondary education.

The provinces demanded that the Canada social transfer be restored to the 1993-94 level. I was elected in 1993, at which time I was the health critic. Unless I am mistaken, things have been going badly in that sector since the Canada social transfer was slashed and separate payments were combined into one smaller amount, which was handed over to the provinces with the order to find a way to make it cover health, social assistance and postsecondary education. These billions of dollars in cuts left the provinces in a very difficult situation, particularly in the health care sector, where needs are growing.

We often mention that the population is aging, that new technologies are increasingly costly, but the federal government turns a deaf ear and makes cuts to eliminate its deficit, on the backs of the poor and the sick. It passes the bill on to the provinces and then says “The problem is that the provinces do not manage their affairs properly”. But the public is not stupid. It can see that, by squeezing the provinces, this government has forced them to reduce their services.

The Minister of Finance tells us that he did provide an increase. But he did not increase the Canada social transfer. He took $2.5 billion, put it in a trust and told the provinces “You are entitled to a prorated amount, you are entitled to a few million, based on conditions set by me”. This is all because of the social union. We were right when we said that the provinces sold their birthright for a pittance. This is how it happened. The provinces are now forced to beg and to implore the big boss, who has the money, and say “Please give us some money, because we have people who are dying of hunger”. This is the problem.

Instead of fully restoring the Canada social transfer, which is supposed to meet the public's needs, the Minister of Finance preferred to start another legal battle by establishing this independent trust which will have, in my opinion, a totally inadequate budget.

Another problem generated by this budget is that of social housing and infrastructures. In the case of social housing, it is nothing short of outrageous. The government did not even allocate any money, except a few dollars to renovate housing units that are in a state of disrepair. But we are asking for social housing for the poor. We are asking for new units, not just minor renovations.

I heard Liberal Party colleagues boasting about the sums they supposedly invested in social housing. However, if members look at the budget, they will have a hard time finding funds for social housing. It is like looking for a needle in the haystack.

The Bloc Quebecois asked the minister to inject $3 billion into an infrastructure program, including $1.7 billion for social housing. The request had the support of all the community groups, such as FRAPRU in Quebec, which looks after social housing for the most disadvantaged. It supported the proposal, because the need is there and to the extent of at least $1.7 billion. When the government says it looks after the poor in this budget, well, we can forget about that.

Instead, the government announced provision for infrastructures in municipalities and urban and rural communities. In the first year, it will provide $100 million for all the provinces. But, Quebec's share of this will be between $20 and $25 million. Given that five kilometres of road costs about $1 million, does the government think we are going to go far with that?

There is worse to come—the employment insurance plan. This budget provides no improvement to the employment insurance plan. There is simply a reduction in contribution rates of 10 cents a year.

We must not say it too loud, because I do not think the Liberals have emphasized it much. Ten cents a year is so ridiculous. In four years, it will be 40 cents. Applause, applause, employment insurance contributions will go down a whole 40 cents. This is scandalous and unacceptable, because the Minister of Finance is using this fund as if it were his milk cow. He is using the unemployed as if they were his milk cows. The robbery continues.

According to the chief actuary, the accumulated surplus will be up to $31.3 billion by the end of the year 2000. To think that the former Celanese employees who were involved in a massive layoff this last week, and who have paid into the EI fund for 20, 25, 30 or 35 years, will get nothing. They are not even eligible for employment insurance because they got separation pay, and that is considered income for determining eligibility for employment insurance.

The Minister of Finance had, however, given us a hint of a possibility, via the former Minister of Human Resources Development, that he would be putting into place an enhanced POWA-style program to help these former workers with 35 years of service, who have always paid into the EI fund. These workers have no prospects of help, and find themselves in a desperate situation and forced onto welfare. This is a horrible and unacceptable situation.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague from the Bloc Quebecois party.

The Liberal government has completely abandoned its moral obligation toward health care and has thus forced the provinces looking at other avenues for more privatization of health care in terms of user fees and everything else. In fact the premier of my province of Nova Scotia is now talking about user fees for some forms of health care and other forms of doctors appointments and so on. We hope that does not happen in the next budget. We also notice in the province of Quebec that one of the hospitals is initiating some sort of user fee system for some aspects of health care.

Does the hon. member think that is the way the provinces should go or should the federal government actually start to live up to its obligations to health care and to the five principles which it originally signed on to.