Debates of March 27th, 2000

The Budget

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I always like to listen to the hon. member when she speaks about her part of the world. She makes eminently good sense. I commend her for the enthusiasm with which she supports her constituents and in particular on some of the natural resources development like the proposed pipeline and the diamond mines. That is perfectly legitimate. It is the kind of thing I would expect any member of parliament to do.

I would like to ask the hon. member opposite whether she has thought about other parts of the budget and in particular the increase in Human Resources Development Canada. In this area there is roughly $1 billion and economists have done some estimates as to how much it really costs in terms of the output. If we put a number of dollars into the job creation scheme the assumption is that jobs are actually created. What is not said is how many jobs are lost or what output costs are attributed to each of these job creation schemes.

The job creation schemes have to be paid for through tax increases to someone. People are paying additional taxes to pay for these job schemes. Where does it come from? Economists have estimated that the $1 billion has cost Canadians $520 million, over half of the $1 billion.

Could the hon. member address this issue? It has been addressed by people like Jim Mirrlees for example who won a Nobel prize recently in developing the optimum taxation theory. I wonder if she could comment on that.

[Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Liberal, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I do not profess to be a specialist in taxation but I can say that I come from an area of very high need. Unemployment is very high. I am very pleased we have made the investment in HRDC, putting aside all of the other administrative difficulties that have befallen the programs. I stand by the initiatives that we have undertaken in my riding and across Canada that have created two million jobs. They are two million jobs for two million Canadians who needed good permanent jobs.

I also applaud the fact that we went from 11.5% to 6.8% unemployment. Youth unemployment is going down but we are still seized with that.

I come from an area where we must diversify the economy. We do not need a hand out; we need a hand up. Northerners take good advantage. I know there are other hon. members in the Chamber who live in areas that are not as well served as those on the industrial grid. We do not have huge industries. Jobs have to be devised and opportunities have to be created for these people, such as in tourism and the mining industry. We have to invest in training and development.

As it is today, the majority of our workers are coming from outside the territories. It is good for the hon. member's riding and others as well, for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and as far as the Atlantic. Workers are coming to the north to work at these mines because we have invested in the opportunities for them to do so. On the other hand, we have to train people and we need the funds to do that.

I will not deal with all the other issues because we would need more time. However, I want the hon. member to know that I stand by the funding that my riding in particular has received. This was much needed funding and it was used very well. It has created opportunities where there would be none.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made reference to the pensioners in the area. She has highly supported the petition that came in. I am sure she recognizes that it was her Indian affairs minister who made an agreement that literally wiped away the benefits for those pensioners with no consideration for them. Obviously that is the approach the government has taken in a number of areas that reflect on ordinary Canadians. In this case it was workers who in a lot of situations gave their lives. Those who are left are now having their pensions wiped out.

If she truly supports this, how does she feel about her Indian affairs minister signing the agreement that wiped away those pensions?

[Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Liberal, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, the Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and I have worked together for almost 12 years. I have the utmost respect for his judgment and thinking.

With regard to this situation, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is seized with his officials and officials of another department in finding a solution and not looking at blame. We are trying to find a solution so that these people do not have the gap that will be created and will receive full pensions. We are working on that. We are not looking to blame someone. If we do that we could do an historical chronology and many fingers could be pointed elsewhere. We are not into that. We want to find solutions.

I am from that riding and I not only support those workers but I support the workers across the country who may be in the same situation. I feel that their story has to be told. Most of the workers are older workers and I support them wholeheartedly in their attempts to get a full pension.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Secretary of State (Rural Development) (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario)]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the February 28 budget, a budget full of good news for all Canadians, including those who live in rural areas.

I know Canadians have responded well to the budget put forward by the finance minister on February 28. That has been evident in the House in the weeks since the budget was tabled as we have seen very few actual questions from the opposition. In fact people who have been around this place a lot longer than I have expressed absolute astonishment on the general acceptance of the budget by the opposition and, indeed, the general acceptance by Canadians.

I believe that has occurred because the budget, in essence, dealt with the priorities of Canadians. It dealt with the issue of tax reductions. The budget put forward a plan of tax reduction of some $54 billion. Canadians had indicated that one of the objectives that needed to be addressed in this budget was tax reduction.

It also dealt with the issue of debt reduction. At the high point a couple of years ago, as a percentage of our GDP, the debt in the country, thanks to the mismanagement of the Tory government for years and years, had risen to a little over 71%. As we follow through on the budget plan, the debt to GDP ratio will drop to below 50%. In fact, over the last three years close to $20 million in marketable debt has been repaid. This is a far cry from what we saw from the Mulroney Tories.

This budget has also gained general acceptance among Canadians because of the types of investments it has made and will continue to make. We saw $2.5 billion being invested in health care, adding to the $14.5 billion the year before. Transfers to the provinces went up this year to the highest level, to some $43 billion over two or three years.

We saw the commitment of $2.6 billion to the infrastructure program to partner with other levels of government, $1 billion for the federal government to deal with its own infrastructure and, as we have heard from some of the previous comments made in the House, some $700 million being invested into items to do with the environment.

I am very pleased and most importantly I would like to talk today about this budget in terms of rural Canada. I will quote a piece of the speech that the Minister of Finance made. He said:

—there are major differences between urban and rural communities.

The concerns of rural Canadians are those shared by all Canadians—quality health care, the best education for their children, a good job. The difference is that, in the case of rural Canada, a hospital closing, a school cutback or the loss of a major employer threatens the very life of the community.

Therefore, we must expand economic development in smaller communities right across the country, north and south, east and west. We must recognize that in the years ahead, all orders of government have to come together, as never before, to broaden opportunities right across the country.

With those words, I think the Minister of Finance spoke clearly to the needs, concerns and issues of rural Canada. What the budget does is it recognizes, as this government began to recognize and first enunciated in the Speech from the Throne in 1996, that the realities faced by rural Canadians are indeed different than those faced by urban Canadians.

We simply have to take a look at some of those issues. Let us take the issue of geography. If people live in a rural area there is so much more geography. Let us take a look at the distance from markets. If people are operating in a rural marketplace, they often have added transportation costs and added issues because of the distance from the market.

Let us look at the whole issue of population density. If one is looking at investing in a rural area, often times there is not the same potential market size that may exist in an urban area.

Let us look at the economy of rural Canada. When people operate in rural Canada, it is, in most cases, a natural resource based economy that is normally cyclical in nature. It is very different from an urbanized, diversified, manufacturing based economy.

The fact that urban and rural Canada are different, the fact that the challenges are different and the fact that the circumstances on the ground are different, requires the government to respond differently in both areas. One of the great strengths of this budget is that it realizes that we do need to respond differently. The budget puts forward very clearly what is a basic debate in this country: Does government have a role to partner with communities, to partner with individuals and to partner with businesses where circumstances call for an improvement in the quality of life of, in this case, rural Canadians? I believe it does.

Members across the way have stood in the House day after day enunciating that the government does not have a role when it comes to dealing with the regions. In question period today we heard criticism after criticism piled on the minister responsible for regional development in Quebec. Day after day we hear criticisms when HRDC partners with rural communities and rural citizens to help improve the quality of their lives.

The budget has clearly stated that we recognize there are differences in rural Canada. We recognize there are different challenges faced by rural Canadians. We are going to work as a partner with those institutions, with those communities and with those people to help improve the quality of life.

If we look at some of the specific points made in the budget, some of the specific measures, we can see that the budget does deal with some of those differences I talked about.

If we look at the issue of geography, we see an initiative there of $160 million to ensure that we will be able to deliver all government services on line. Those who live in a rural or remote community often do not have the ability to access government services in the traditional way of going to a particular office or some place made of bricks and mortar. Here we have a government understanding that specific issue in rural Canada, understanding that rural Canadians need to have access to their government, and we see an initiative of $160 million to provide that type of access to them.

When we look at distance from markets we look at the $2.6 billion infrastructure program that we will roll out in conjunction with other levels of government. This is our own billion dollar program. Something which is very important and which rural Canadians saw clearly is that a component of the infrastructure program has been specifically directed to rural Canada, to the needs, the criteria and the challenges facing rural Canadians in terms of developing their infrastructure.

Not only is the program there but it is being designed in a way that will address the needs of rural Canadians and deal with the difference in distance from markets.

The whole issue of population density is important to those who live in rural Canada. The private sector often goes to an urban setting, where it has a very vast market, and makes an investment on its own because it can get a quick return on its investment. Trying to make that same investment, for example, in telecommunications infrastructure or in energy distribution, in a rural area where we do not have that population density, requires another partner. Often times that partner can and should be a level of government. Sometimes is it is the federal government, sometimes the provincial government and sometimes even the municipal government, but it is an appropriate role to play.

We see in the budget a $54 million commitment to community futures which can take an innovative approach to assisting communities. It takes an approach that I like to call a bottom up and not a top down approach. Community futures are run and operated by local boards of directors, selected from local individuals who make decisions on how they will go about community development, not based on some decision that may be made in Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton or Victoria, but based on the needs of that rural community.

We also see the government dealing with the cyclical nature of our resource based economies with assistance to agriculture, forestry and mining. This is a budget that demonstrates clearly that this government understands the needs of rural Canadians, that it is addressing those needs and that it cares about rural Canadians. That is why I believe this budget deserves the support of all members of the House, and particularly those members who represent rural constituencies.

[Roy H. Bailey, Reform, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak very passionately about my constituency, as the Secretary of State for Children and Youth just did. I particularly want to address the minister in charge of rural development.

I want tell the last speaker that if he wants to see rural development in a rural area going into collapse, he should look at what is happening with the amount of money that this government has put into my constituency. Of the $1.7 billion announced across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, only 26% of the money has been paid to the farmers as of March 12. Some 60% of all Manitoba and Saskatchewan farmers had their AIDA forms rejected.

This is what I have as of today: First, the highest debt ever in my constituency; second, more paved roads having to be returned to gravel; and third, the worst fallout of people leaving the constituency with the abandonment of towns all because this government did not treat the number one industry in western Canada in the same way it treated the west during the national energy crisis.

I do not know how the member can stand and brag about rural development when I am facing rural decline.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the hon. member is very concerned with his riding, as are all hon. members in the House.

On the four occasions in the last four months that I have been to Saskatchewan I have had an opportunity to talk to a wide range of individuals. I am a little surprised that the hon. member speaks that way. When his party was campaigning it talked about taking money out of the agricultural budget but now that it seems to be politically expedient it encourages it.

The reality is that not only did we put a billion dollars into a farm aid disaster package in 1998-99, but the minister of agriculture announced another billion dollars for 2000 and 2001. Then we announced another $240 million specifically for Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Just last week the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, along with his 10 colleagues from all the provinces including the minister from Saskatchewan, signed an agreement on how to deal with the basic safety net package.

This is a government that cares about the farmers of western Canada, cares about farmers right across Canada and is taking concrete action.

[Mark Muise, Progressive Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I was quite interested to hear the Secretary of State for Rural Development speak about rural Canada. My riding of West Nova is very rural. On January 21 a severe storm affected five or six wharves along the coastline of Nova Scotia from Port Lorne down to Delaps Cove and areas in between. Because of the severe cuts the federal government had already done to the provinces and to various programs, these wharves were in a state of some disrepair and the storm severely damaged them.

I heard the secretary of state talk about supporting our rural communities. Would he be prepared to encourage the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to put the proper funding in place to repair the wharves, instead of just using the existing budget that is taking away from the ongoing repair that needs to be done? Would he encourage him to put in place some emergency relief by possibly taking some of the millions and millions of dollars wasted on the gun registry and putting it toward the repair of those wharves and, as my colleague mentioned, helping farmers? What does my hon. colleague think of that?

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear from the member for West Nova. I have had an opportunity to travel to his riding and to work with him there. He makes a very good point. There are different challenges in rural Canada than exist in urban Canada which require the participation of the government to deal with them. I send a very clear message to the former Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance Party, that government has a role to play in dealing with rural Canada.

I was pleased to see as part of the criteria for the government's own billion dollar infrastructure program, that is the infrastructure under its own auspices, that wharves was one of the items listed as an example of things the particular funding could deal with.

[John Herron, Progressive Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak to this debate. We all know that the budget debate is one of the most critical ones we have each year. I will be splitting my time with the learned member from the riding of West Nova. I know we are all looking forward to his speech.

Budgets are more than just about numbers. Budgets are essentially what I consider to be a blueprint that illustrates the values of the government. It is a blueprint to discovering what kind of vision the government has not only for today but well into the future. It is also very much a blueprint to ensure that we put forth the necessary initiatives so we can be competitive not only today but into the future, so we can have a vibrant economy to pay for all the programs or initiatives that we hold dear as Canadians.

I want to talk about what the government is not doing in the budget. In 1988 Canada went to the polls on the initiative of free trade. We all know that election came down to one public policy issue. At that time our trade with the Americans was essentially around $90 billion each and every year. Today I am very proud to say that through the FTA and NAFTA our trade with the Americans is well over $260 billion annually.

We have had an enormous amount of economic growth over the last seven years. From where has that enormous growth come? It has largely come from our trade relationship with the American economy, which we all know is white hot. Without that initiative, without that vision, without that blueprint, we would not be able to compete in the economy and pay for the programs that we hold so very dear.

We are now at another milestone in the country's development. The rest of the industrialized world, our trading partners, the Americans and the Europeans, are now taking leaps in tax reduction, giant steps to ensure that their economies are more affluent. I call this an amazing coincidence. Maybe it is just a coincidence, but I would argue that it makes economic sense.

The Irish exponentially lowered taxes both in the corporate tax regime and in the personal tax regime, combined with investments in terms of education. The Celtic tiger as it has come to be known in Europe, Ireland, now leads Europe in the amount of its economic growth with 98% growth in its GDP over the last 15 years.

Over the last number of years we have seen an exponential amount of growth by the Germans of 18%, by the British of 18% and by the Americans as well. It is a similar number. Meanwhile growth in Canada has only been 7%. We are lagging behind our trading partners. The reason for it is that we cannot keep wealth in this country.

Time and time again it has been proven, and I call it the amazing coincidence, that if we lower taxes we grow an economy to create more wealth to pay for the programs that define us as a society.

It happened in Ireland. It happened in Finland. Finland was essentially a Soviet bloc country. Now it has a very growth oriented economy. It happened when John Kennedy lowered taxes in the 1960s. It happened when Progressive Conservative Premier Ralph Klein made it a mandate to ensure that the Alberta economic fundamentals were put in order and to pay down debt.

It happened with the economy of Ontario. The low tax regime that Michael Harris brought forth, I would argue quite sensibly, is responsible for the record amount of growth in our economy over the last number of years. If Michael Harris and the economy were not as vibrant we simply would not be collecting the revenues in Ottawa to pay for the programs we have right now.

This is the blueprint. Our trade regime has done well, but to retain our economic competitiveness into the future we need first and foremost to get our economic fundamentals in order. This means paying down our national debt. We have a moral obligation to all future generations to pay down the $587 billion national debt.

We have an obligation to ensure that our best, our brightest and most adventurous can grow and prosper in this country. They should be provided with a tax regime by which they can profit and participate in our Canadian economy. We are losing all too fast our best and brightest to the United States and other jurisdictions as they seek opportunities in other countries.

The government is trying to take accolades for its one time initiative of $2.5 billion for health care and post-secondary education over four years. That is only a very small portion of the large amount of money that has been taken away from our provincial partners over the last five to six years. Before we have any more grandiose programs, before we give any more money to HRDC in grants and contributions, before we start reinvesting in new made in Ottawa solutions, let us do the fundamentals first. Let us pay down the debt. Let us make sure that we lower the taxes. Let us make sure that we put money in our priority spending programs, our health care system and our post-secondary education system in particular.

I know you are of Celtic heritage as well, Mr. Speaker. I spoke a few moments ago about the Celtic tiger. People talk about the fact that they have lowered income taxes both corporately and from a personal income perspective. However they have also made it an objective, a mandate of their society, to ensure that anybody who has the aptitude to attend university, to seek post-secondary education, to seek training at a higher level, has the economic capacity to do so. By that I mean post-secondary education in their country is accessible to everyone.

Today that is simply not the case. I believe we need to make it a common objective as a society so that every individual who wants to can participate in this economy. I want to create a culture of opportunity so that we can provide the necessary skills to those individuals who want to provide for themselves by helping them to get educated, by helping them reach the highest level they can with respect to the economy and make the best contribution they can. In order for us to do that we need to make post-secondary education and training more accessible and more affordable.

I finished school just over a decade ago. It may be a bit more than that; I am starting to age. At that time a student debt level of about $6,000 or $7,000 was considered extremely high. As many members of the House know, the average student debt level now is $25,000 to $30,000 annually. For that to quadruple in this period of growth is a national shame.

There is one solid thing on which I would like to compliment the finance minister. Reindexing the income tax brackets for inflation was a very solid initiative and I applaud the government on it.

In conclusion, I want to talk about the blueprint the country needs, the vision that we need. Let us get our economic fundamentals in order so that we can participate in the upcoming century by making sure that Canada has a low tax regime, both corporately and from a personal income perspective; that we pay down our debt; and that we put money in the priority spending areas of health care and post-secondary education.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's speech and I want to ask him a question because he talked about reduction of debt. This is the biggest thorn in my side with respect to the budget. In so-called good times with surpluses there is no meaningful plan on the part of the government or the finance minister to reduce our debt and thereby reduce the interest payments and free up more money for actual program spending or for further tax reductions, which would be a huge boost to the economy.

The member admitted that he is young, and compared to me he is just a child. He may not know the answer to my question because he was only a babe in diapers when the Conservatives were running the country. They pretty well doubled the debt they inherited, mostly by doing nothing about it. They continued to add to it with deficits every year.

Why does he suppose that the Progressive Conservative Party, with nine years of majority government, never did anything about stopping the huge deficits it had every year during its term of office?

[John Herron, Progressive Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question was intended to be constructive and he will get a constructive reply.

These are the facts. Quite simply during the 1984 to 1993 era the Progressive Conservative government could have and should have done more in terms of paring down our deficit and heading toward balancing the budget.

To put that in perspective, in 1984 the deficit was approximately $40 billion. The Progressive Conservative government of the day pared down the deficit to just under $20 billion. At that time the government was clearly headed in the right direction over the first three years. The Progressive Conservatives were heading toward an era of actually paying down the debt during a boom economy. I have said before that it should have and could have done more.

During that era the Reform Party actually took flight. It would be very wrong for Reform members to say they came about because they were upset with the direction in which the country was going with respect to fiscal responsibility. During that same era from a historical perspective we were on a better track.

In 1988 and 1989 the government missed an opportunity to continue on that track. It walked into a cold recession, one of international magnitude which affected many economies. In the United States the U.S. debt doubled by $2 trillion during the Reagan and Bush administrations. It doubled in a number of economies. One exception was the U.K. under Maggie Thatcher which actually had a more aggressive approach during that era.

To blame only Brian Mulroney for why we had a huge deficit is the same as blaming the whole western economy. It is the same as blaming George Bush and Ronald Reagan for the deficits and combined debt in the U.S. When we put it in that perspective, deficit permissibility was in our psyche. I applaud the Progressive Conservative government for bringing the issue to the table and actually venting it but it missed the opportunity to do more, I must say.

That is the context in which this debate should always be phrased. To blame the Conservatives for the deficit, they were heading in the right direction. They got caught up in an international recession. It was part of the western world. It happened in Germany under Chancellor Kohl as well. History will speak for itself in that regard.

I thank the member for his constructive question.

[Mark Muise, Progressive Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in the budget debate. I do so with a deep sense of regret and disappointment. I say disappointment because like most Canadians I believe the Liberal government missed a great opportunity to provide all Canadians with the significant tax relief they so richly deserve after years of suffering and making concessions to bring the country's deficit under control.

Over the past couple of years the finance minister has told Canadians that the country is now in a surplus position when it comes to its finances. In normal circumstances this would be reason to celebrate if Canadians were allowed to reap some of those benefits. Instead they are provided with very modest tax relief which in many ways will be felt somewhere down the road in three or four years from now.

Canadians can no longer afford to wait much longer. They deserve significant tax relief now. All Canadians are aware of the billions of dollars of surplus in the EI program. The PC party has consistently called for a significant reduction in the EI premiums. We have suggested lowering the premiums down to $2 which is the level for long term stability recommended by the fund's chief actuary.

Although the government would have us believe that Canadian workers are beneficiaries of some EI premium reductions since it took power, it seems to forget that any decreases in the EI premium were basically washed away by the increase in CPP premiums. That is not acceptable.

The finance minister knows that high payroll taxes kill jobs, as my hon. colleague just mentioned. We saw it and history shows it, yet we are not doing anything about it. The Minister of Finance once referred to high unemployment insurance premiums as a cancer killing tax on jobs. What has happened to suddenly change the finance minister's way of thinking? Why does he maintain these artificially high EI premiums rather than immediately reduce them to $2? That was recommended by the chief actuary.

Canada has the highest personal income taxes among the G-7 and the second highest corporate tax rate in the OECD. Naturally, Canadians expected to hear about significant tax breaks in the finance minister's budget. When the smoke and mirrors cleared away, Canadians still found themselves with the highest personal income tax rate in the G-7 and the second highest corporate tax rate in the OECD. As a member of parliament representing a part of the country in this hallowed institution, I do not feel proud of that.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has criticized the budget for failing to narrow the income tax gap between Canada and the U.S. The huge gap is already responsible for the tremendous brain drain which has and will continue to affect Canadian productivity. We cannot continue to lose our most educated and brightest minds to our American competitors.

A recent study by a senior researcher at the Conference Board of Canada confirmed that there was a significant increase in the number of permanent and non-permanent skilled emigrants to the U.S. It went from 17,000 in 1986 to 98,000 in 1997. Many of the emigrants are in the high tech and health care fields. There is nothing in the budget that is going to stay the exodus of our brightest minds in the future.

Why should Canadians celebrate this budget? The budget will do very little to alleviate the problem facing most of Canada's university students. Already the average debt for an undergraduate degree from a Canadian university is approximately $25,000 and when we tack on interest it gets to $40,000. That is a mortgage on a young person's life which is not acceptable. It will restrict that young person's ability to go ahead in the future and do something worthwhile. Instead of putting something back into the economy, he or she will be repaying that huge debt and will be burdened by it for a long time. That is not acceptable.

Michael Conlon of the Canadian Federation of Students said that the finance minister's budget all but ensured that tuition fees for post-secondary education in Canada would continue to rise. In Nova Scotia our students already pay some of the highest fees in the country. It is time for action before we lose more of our most valuable minds and well-educated people.

As my hon. colleague said, the decision to provide a one time $2.5 billion supplement to the Canada health and social transfer payment for education and health care over four years falls far short of what was expected by those institutions and what is required to help maintain them. Following the budget announcement, the Canadian Medical Association said that the one time $2.5 billion amount was insufficient to deal with the growing crisis in medicare. With an aging society and rising technological costs, the small cash infusion will not address our health care needs.

According to the CMA, Canada loses approximately 400 doctors a year to the U.S. Calls for a $6 billion increase in transfer payments over a four year period to help fund much needed new medical technology have been ignored by the government in lieu of the $2.5 billion announced in the recent budget. The government's failure to address the immediate needs of an ailing health care system simply provides further reasons for doctors to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

We have heard a lot recently about the possibility of having a two tier health care system in Canada. We certainly do not want to see such a system. The federal government is slowly trying to push our provincial governments in that direction because of its serious lack of commitment to the funding of Canada's health care system.

At one time the federal government was contributing to health care at the rate of 50%. Now only 13 cents of every dollar spent on health care in Canada comes from the federal government. Health care in the country is declining and the $2.5 billion over the next four years will do nothing or very little to rectify this serious situation. Canadians demand a far greater financial commitment to health care than what they have seen thus far from the Liberal government.

Just a few minutes ago I listened to my hon. colleague the secretary of state for rural development talk about rural communities. I represent West Nova which is predominantly a rural community.

On January 21 a severe winter storm hit a stretch of coastline and affected some five wharves between Port Lorne and Delaps Cove. These wharves were severely damaged, wharves that had been neglected over the years by the federal government. They did not have adequate upkeep because of lack of funding. Some of these wharves were damaged beyond repair.

What was the answer to the repair question? When it was asked for emergency relief the government said it was going to repair the wharves within the existing budget instead of providing the needed emergency relief. Wharves that should have been repaired this year and which were on a priority list will now not be repaired because the funds will be diverted to those wharves that were severely damaged.

The government is neglecting our rural communities. I find it difficult when I hear my hon. colleague stand and say he supports rural communities. It is not so. The Liberals' words say one thing and their actions say something else.

I could go on for days and days about how serious this budget is and how little it does for Canadians, for some of the hardest hit, the poor. The government said it would increase the personal exemption by $100 from $7,200 to $7,300 in one year. In this country those who cannot feed, clothe and house themselves should not be paying tax. That is how I see it.

I could go on but I know my time has expired.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the budget today. I would like to speak not of past successes but of opportunity.

The government is poised between this year and next, into the next budget, to make changes that will fundamentally alter the way government operates in its spending practices which will make Canada's civil service one of the most efficient bureaucracies in the world and indeed our spending practices the most efficient in the world.

We are in a difficult time right now as a federal parliament because the winds of change in the provinces are such that cutting spending is all the rage and cutting taxes is all the rage. It puts the Liberals particularly in a dilemma insofar as we continue to believe that there is a role for government in making things better for people in the country.

Canadians have been rightly suspicious over the years, whether it is a Liberal government, a Tory government or an NDP government, whether it is provincial or federal, that often taxpayers' money is not used very efficiently. The answer in the provinces all too often has been simply to cut spending. In my own province of Ontario that has been the typical attitude. The Harris government began with that principle.

I have just had a note passed to me. I would say that I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Halton, Mr. Speaker, in case you were not aware of that.

I remember very clearly that one of the mantras of the provincial Tories was that they would cut spending by 20%. When one talks about hospitals, health care and all that kind of thing, or all kinds of social service NGOs, if spending was cut by 10% across the board it would not be the inefficient ones that would suffer, it would be the efficient ones that would suffer. I know of an NGO in my riding that survived the 20% cut simply by eliminating all of its staff. It retained its administrators.

The answer is not simply to cut spending; the answer is to spend wisely and well. I think that is where we are headed or can be headed as a government.

I do not speak for the government. I speak as a member of parliament. My interests are the interests of the country, not simply the interests of my party or my government.

I believe that there is an opportunity now.

I know, for example, that the Standing Committee on Public Accounts has been examining for some time a whole new way of doing accounting. I know and I support this catastrophe of the Minister of Human Resources Development. She wanted to release all of these documents to the public and, naturally, some of the documents were found to be wanting.

The opportunity that presents itself to governments today, and to this government in particular, has been created by the Internet. For the first time ever it is absolutely possible to put all of the documents generated by the bureaucracy on grants and contributions, bidding processes or purchases on the Internet so that the new auditor general is not some official but can be the people of Canada themselves.

I come into this equation in two areas because I have been very interested in trying to bring accountability to non-profit organizations and charities. I have been trying to get legislation which would provide standards of transparency, accountability and reporting. The theme behind that was simply that when organizations send in their tax and financial information forms to Revenue Canada, if the information could be guaranteed to be good, then Revenue Canada could put it on the Internet. Then, when a person came to decide whether they should donate to one charity or another, they could call it up on the Internet and see for themselves how efficiently that organization was running.

I have to say that it was a great disappointment to me that the government did not announce in this budget some movement toward bringing legislated transparency and accountability to charities. However, this principle of getting that information, making sure it is good information and then making it available through the Internet is precisely what we should be doing with all government data that is not of a secret or confidential nature or is not an invasion of privacy. That is enormous.

For instance, in the Department of Human Resources Development every time an organization applies for a grant it should be required to sign a form authorizing the government to release the application form by which it made that grant. Then the people in the community could see who these individuals were and the people in the community would know fast enough whether they were charlatans or people who were responsible and who should be receiving government funds.

I think there is an enormous opportunity, if government seized the opportunity. In a way, I would like to think that I am part of that equation. As a matter of fact, I would like to think that all private members in the House, the backbenchers and the opposition members, could be part of that equation because I have before the House now, Mr. Speaker, a private member's bill that would complement this whole principle of transparency and making government documents available.

I do not want to digress and advertise my own private member's bill, but it is part of this entire equation of making all government documents which should be reasonably accessible to the public available and then put them on the Internet. What a marvellous, marvellous move that would be.

I have to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that I admire what the Minister of Human Resources Development tried to do. She just sort of jumped the gun a bit. What she did was, she said “All right, you can have all of these documents”. It is the first time this has ever occurred in which a minister has disclosed everything from a program of grants and contributions.

Inevitably, Mr. Speaker, there are going to be problems. That is inevitable. I do not argue that the opposition should not be pointing out those problems, but it should not just be the Department of Human Resources Development, it should not just be a minister doing it one time, it should happen all the time. It should be constant.

Every time there is a grant or contribution or the government makes a purchase, so long as it is not necessarily secret because of national security or privacy, then it should be available on the Internet. I think that is entirely possible.

I look to the future and I think that if we bring in that type of transparency to government it will create the most efficient bureaucracy in the world and the most efficient spending bureaucracy in the world. Because in the end the quarrel is not that money has been spent on social programs; the quarrel is whether that money is actually getting to the social programs it is supposed to get to and whether it is doing the job it is supposed to do.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that this House of Commons, my colleagues opposite, should join me in trying to bring this to pass, instead of, as has been occurring in the last week or so, blocking a private member's initiative which would benefit all Canadians, which would bring transparency on a scale that is unheard of anywhere in the world.

I have read the American freedom of information act. It is nowhere near as transparent as what would occur with our access to information act if I could get the reforms I proposed in my Bill C-206 forward.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I do not want to use my time to advertise what is my own initiative. It is just that I urge on my companions that it is good legislation and I would wish that they, as backbench MPs, would support it. Actually, I have 60 backbench MPs on the Liberal side who support it. We could all take advantage of this opportunity as MPs to change the way government operates, to make it transparent, accountable and effective when it uses taxpayers' dollars.

I say this not only to members of the opposition, but I say it to my own government. The opportunity is in this next year. If we can spend well we can save well.

I believe it is absolutely possible to spend effectively, to do the things we have to do as a government in the economy to make the lives of people better, but we can also save enough to make sure that the debt goes down and we can even save on the taxes. Because in the end it is only Ontario, British Columbia and Newfoundland which have created this incredible example of cutting taxes when they still have a deficit. The key thing, Mr. Speaker, is to cut taxes when you have saved and when you know how to spend, and spend well.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what my colleague across the way had to say. I want to reflect on what he had to say about transparency and putting all of these things on the Internet. I think that he misses a key point when he makes that suggestion. I have no problem with being transparent. No one would argue with that, but there is a much bigger question that underlies all of this.

If we were to give Canadians the opportunity to look at all of these programs and all of the grants and contributions that are made by government, I wonder whether they would not say “I think I am going to keep my money”.

I ask the member, why should money be transferred from people who are running a business efficiently to those who are not?

The government talks about creating jobs, so many jobs with this particular project and so many jobs with that project, but it never says how many jobs are destroyed by taking that money away from Canadians who have worked hard to earn it and transferring it to those who cannot do something properly and efficiently. That is the key question that needs to be answered by the government.

It talks about creating jobs but it never tells us how many are being destroyed by high taxes. I think it is a given that high taxes destroy jobs. What is the hon. member's response to that?

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

Mr. Speaker, there are thousands upon thousands of grants and contributions which are made. There are tens of thousands of purchases made by government.

The way the system works now, there are internal checks, but they are not very good because we cannot check internally as effectively as we can check from outside. The only outside checks are done by the auditor general and the occasional media person or MP who makes an access to information request. We have to acknowledge that the access to information law, as it exists now, is not very effective in getting the kind of information we need.

There are thousands and thousands of grants and contributions out there. If a bureaucrat decides to be sleepy at his task, or fails to send a piece of paper, or fails to do anything, the chances of him or her being discovered are absolutely minimal. The Access to Information Act is inadequate and the number of people who are actually looking are few.

However, if every time that bureaucrat had to pass a piece of paper, and that piece of paper became available on the Internet, and somebody could check it, then we would see efficiency. We would see efficiency in the government, in the bureaucracy, that would be unheard of in comparison to any corporation and in comparison to any bureaucracy in the world.

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

Mr. Speaker, my Alliance colleague was right. When the government takes money away from a taxpayer and gives it to a profitable corporation all of Canada should question that.

Why would the government, in any way, shape or form, give half a million dollars of taxpayers' money to the Wal-Mart corporation to set up so-called jobs in the whip's riding? Why would the government give half a million dollars to an American run corporation that is already, by its own standards, very successful in the commercial market?

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

Mr. Speaker, I should say at the beginning that I am no fan of this particular type of program that gives money to corporations of that nature.

However, I should say to the member opposite that the reason he knows about that is because the minister disclosed all of that documentation. That is precisely my argument.

We need to know that, not just as MPs, but the people need to see it as it happens so they can react and say “No, not in my riding, not in my town. Do not give the money to Wal-Mart. Do not give it to the corporations. Give it to my small business”. But we cannot see that.

I have had spending in my riding that has taken me completely by surprise. I did not know about it. The only reason I could find out about it was because the minister made those documents available.

What I suggest we need to have happen is that we need to reform the Access to Information Act. We need to make sure that information is produced and is available on the Internet so that every Canadian can become his or her own auditor general.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour to rise to debate the budget. It has been an honour to rise to debate every budget we have had since 1993, since this government came to office.

The House will recall that when the government changed in 1993 we encountered a deficit situation which amounted to $42 billion. What a difference seven years makes. I am no fan of deficit budgeting. There was a deficit when the Tories took over. In half the time they doubled the debt. It was becoming a travesty. Had the situation not been turned around, there is no doubt the International Monetary Fund would have been looking over our shoulder. I remember one of the first tasks the Minister of Finance was required to perform. He went to New York to calm the fears of Wall Street.

Over that seven years we have succeeded in overcoming the deficits and now, for the third year, are into a surplus situation. I am told it is only the third time since Confederation that there has been a three year run of surplus budgeting. It has changed the whole complexion of governance. It has changed the way we do business, and we have had to learn to do it from an entirely different perspective.

This last budget consisted of an initial thrust into comprehensive tax cutting. We had done a bit in some of the years before for people with lower incomes and so on as we could do it, and rightly so. Now the Minister of Finance has been able to come in with a far broader based tax cut. He has also said that as the country can afford it those tax cuts will increase with the years.

The remarkable thing about it is that unlike our friends in the province of Ontario it was done without maintaining a deficit situation. We have maintained the surplus and we have built a very strong base that will reflect very positively in the immediate years to come.

We are into a new world, a new experience. It is expected that in the next year we will have the second highest growth in the G-7. The prediction is something like 3.8% and that is remarkable because it is not accompanied by inflation. It is not accompanied by those ghosts that sit behind us when we move forward with a strong economy.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

What ghosts? The ghosts of abuse?

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

I say to my hon. friend the ghost of inflation is probably one of the worst ones. I also want to tell my friend that we have been able to do something else. I am going to defend HRDC because all members need to do is to talk to some of the people who have been recipients of that money about what it has done for them. Letters of thanks have come in to the offices of members. I would say to members across the way that they have all received money from HRDC.

[An hon. member]

No.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

None at all?

[An hon. member]

None.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Fine, I can accept that gentleman's comments, but the other comments are a bit hypocritical because they have been recipients of HRDC funds. I invite them all to go to those recipients. They have a list of whom they are. They should go to those organizations and ask them what the money was used for, where it went.

How many people who are physically handicapped were able to be employed because of the distribution of that money? How many young people were able to experience their first job because of that money? How many people were able to take retraining and move from a very marginal existence into a well paying, permanent job? That is what that money was intended for, and that is where it went.

As the next few months come along that evidence will be falling into place. I am proud to be part of that. Although I must say that the riding of Halton, which is a contributory riding and not a recipient riding, did not receive very much money. We did not qualify for the transitional jobs fund in Halton because we had an unemployment rate that was too low to do so. However, other funding came in to Halton for other kinds of purposes. As the months go on I think all members will receive communications from their ridings and from the recipients saying thanks very much.

I should also remind members who are so critical of the government that their offices spent a lot of time contacting the minister's office at HRDC, pleading with her to speed up the transfer of money. I am rendered speechless when I see members, who were recipients of HRDC money and wanted as much as they could get, stand in the House week after week criticizing the program, all 26 programs or however many there are.

I hope those programs continue, incidentally, and I hope that the less fortunate, the people who sincerely deserve it, are able to get a leg up so that they can enter into the workforce full time and with a decent income.

The budget also did some other things that are not talked about as much and have not been talked about in the debate. There have been $700 million invested to develop environmental technologies and sustainable practices. Coupled with that there are increases for the Canada Foundation for Innovation by another $900 million to $1.9 billion. There are also $900 million over five years to fund and sustain 2,000 chairs for research excellence at the universities. All these things dovetail together so that the investment in sustainability and in sustainable technologies for the future has really received a boost.

We are in a situation now where I think there is a general acceptance that global warming is a reality. We all see evidence that comes to us every now and again. The most recent one last week was when we learned that the oceans in the last 50 years have risen in temperature by half a degree. We also saw the satellite shot where the big ice shelf in the Antarctic has now broken away. It is twice the size of Prince Edward Island.

These things are cause for great concern, for if the oceans rise one metre hundreds of millions of souls will be displaced and will have to move away. In China the figure is something like 95 million should the oceans rise.

We are looking forward into a new era, and I am pleased to be part of the team that has brought Canada from the brink.