Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the budgetary policy of the government.
I note that many members today have said that Canada's growth in regard to the other G-7 countries is very good, in the neighbourhood of the third best I believe. I certainly agree that the economy is doing well. I would probably disagree with the government as to how much is a direct result of its actions. Let us look at this growth and what the government does with the money that comes to it which is to be used for programs and other things in Canada.
Let us start with health care. It is my understanding that health care is funded at about a 1994-95 level. Thousands and thousands of Canadians are left standing in waiting lines because there is no MRI machine, bed or some other facility for them to receive the medical treatment they need. Education also seems to be underfunded. Why?
On a first nations reserve in my riding of Selkirk—Interlake, the Fairford Indian reserve, why are hundreds of people living in construction trailers? We could fly out there today and see people living in construction trailers with no bathrooms, at eight or ten degrees below zero. If there is money in the government and it is running massive surpluses, why are people living in construction trailers? I do not understand it.
This may be part of the answer to my second question. The Corbière decision referred to off reserve aboriginal people having the right to vote in reserve elections. Why is the money going to the assembly of chiefs to look at this issue instead of the very people that are off the reserves and need the funding in order to exercise that franchise on the reserves?
It shows that the spending is wasteful and the government has its priorities wrong. That first nation which I spoke of is a real sad situation. Church services are currently being held in a small building because the original church burned down.
Those are sad commentaries on how the government is handling its budget. I will now go on with some straightforward suggestions and programs it could be utilizing.
Agriculture has some real bright spots but it also has some problems. It is the government's responsibility in dealing with the budget to deal with problems. The 2000 budget certainly did not offer any long term plan for the future of farming in Canada. There was an announcement of $400 million between the federal government and the provinces for Manitoba and Saskatchewan. That had been announced previous to the budget but it was announced again so the government could get double mileage out of it.
The government left out every other province and farmers are hurting in the other provinces as well. At least Alberta had the backbone and common sense to say that it could not leave its farmers unprotected from foreign subsidies. In place of the federal government taking some action regarding the farmers, the Alberta government said it was going to pay out $4.29 an acre and give the farmers some help. This was done in time for spring seeding. The money is already on the way.
The budget failed to do a number of things. It failed to provide meaningful or timely emergency compensation to farmers that were suffering from other countries' trade distorting subsidies. That is something that could have been done.
Of the previous money the government had already made out under AIDA, that was a fine, good program in the that it had money in it but the delivery has been a disaster. Around 25% or 26% of that money has been delivered when the promise was that for 1998-99 it would all be delivered in time for seeding in the previous year and this spring. We still have not seen that.
The ongoing scandal at the federal human resources department is another example that the government does not know how to deliver program money. When it wants to use money for political purposes, it can simply shovel the money out the door.
The government has an opportunity in a budget to reduce taxes. In regard to agriculture, the federal excise tax on gasoline could have been reduced. It is four cents. Farms particularly in western Canada but also in other parts of the country have large fuel bills. Fuel is one of their major expenses.
In Ontario just south of here the Oxford County Federation of Agriculture has estimated that farmers will pay between 48% and 50% more on their fuel costs than they did a year ago. In my riding of Selkirk—Interlake we were buying fuel at approximately 28 cents to 29 cents a litre. When I last looked at a bill a few weeks ago it is up in the range of 40 cents to 45 cents. The hurt that is being felt in Oxford county is being felt right across the country.
The Liberal government does not quite get it and its individual members of parliament do not understand. Last Sunday the member for Oxford was quoted as saying that a reduction in fuel taxes would do little to help farmers so just leave the taxes on. I do not know how that rationale applies, “We cannot help you very much so we will not help you at all”. It is time to say give me a break because the government should be doing everything possible, even the little things, to help farmers, aboriginal people and people with low incomes. There are thousands of places where the government could be doing a much better job.
The government continues to charge user fees. The auditor general has indicated time and time again that he is not sure who the beneficiary is or who should actually be charged a user fee. In the cases of the ones being applied against agriculture, they are not being reduced. They are continuing to be applied and that further reduces the income of farmers who are having a tough time.
Fighting high foreign subsidies is also something the government could be doing. In our trade with France for instance, it has a surplus of about $2.5 billion over what Canada exports to that country. It would seem to me that is a fairly strong negotiating tool that we could use in our negotiations with the European Union and France to get them to lower their subsidies.
The standing committee on agriculture had an interesting presentation from the National Farmers Union. Its economic theory sounded a lot like that of the New Democratic Party. It does not believe that subsidies have any effect on the amount of grain that would be produced by a farmer. I do not think even Liberal members believe that economic theory. It was a pretty interesting presentation.
I can only sum up by saying that the government does not seem to be listening to farmers. I will conclude by saying what farmers do want. They want a voluntary Canadian Wheat Board. They want a commercial contracts based grain transportation system. They want simple, predictable long term safety net disaster programs. They want good health care and good education. They want a future for their children in agriculture.
Farmers do not want the Firearms Act, Bill C-68 of years ago. They do not want the Canadian Wheat Board allocating rail cars causing inefficiencies. They do not want the Liberal government ruining trade relations with the United States thereby driving down their incomes even further.
As a Canadian Alliance member, I am really pleased to be in the House serving the constituents of Selkirk—Interlake.