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.