Debates of March 27th, 2000

The Budget

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for this fine question.

Yes, I believe there is no room for a two tier system. If Quebec does become sovereign one day, these conditions, the five great principles the Canada Health Act incorporated, will remain. I think we have a good health insurance plan in Canada. It also covers all of the most disadvantaged. Everyone can therefore obtain treatment without cost. It is accessible, and the care is good.

However, at the moment what we are faced with—and it is of some concern—is the famous cuts by this government to the Canada social transfer, drastic cuts, when the provinces were at a very critical point because of the increase in population aging and the increased costs of new technologies. The provinces were already in a situation of having to cut themselves in their management in order to reduce their deficits.

The biggest problem came from this Liberal government, which put the axe to the Canada social transfer, causing the provinces to now find themselves faced with desperate needs in terms of the sick and of income security. Cuts had to be made there as well, but support must continue to be given to these people.

There is good reason then for the appearance of other means, such as private industry. It sees in this a share of the market. By wanting to restore a system with shorter waiting lists and better care, it is facing off with the governments. Private enterprise is putting enormous pressure on the governments. The governments must really make sure they can maintain all health care services by not losing sight of these five fundamental principles.

We oppose a two tiered system, but the federal government must now do its part to ensure that the provinces can keep and honour these five principles.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this truly is a watershed budget for Canadians. After seven years of sacrifice, of seeing treasured programs reduced and bracket creep eat up more and more of their family incomes, Canadians finally can see the benefits of the long period of restraint which has addressed our overspending, which has produced two surplus budgets in a row. It is finally providing the kind of tax relief and reinvestment in our social programs and the future of our economy that Canadians want to see to create a better future for their children.

I was privileged during the course of the discussions leading up to the 2000 budget to have the benefit of significant and important input from my constituents in Ottawa West—Nepean. In the fall we held a prebudget consultation meeting and I was very pleased that there was lively and well-informed discussion. The discussion focused not only on the long term and short term interests of individuals in my constituency but just as important, the long term interests of all Canadians.

We also distributed a survey during our door to door visits last summer and throughout the fall, at various meetings and in my fall householder. There was a very impressive response. I want to refer to that prebudget survey which was done in Ottawa West—Nepean and then talk about how the budget has responded to the concerns expressed by my constituents.

Very clearly the top priority of more than one-third of the respondents was personal tax reductions. The government has responded. The second most important priority was health care. The government, notwithstanding the comments of the member from the Bloc, has responded. People were also concerned about the environment and the need to invest in new environmental solutions. The government has responded.

The largest employer in this region now is not the federal government. It is the high tech sector. People were concerned about investment in research, science and technology. The government has responded.

Since we were able to start tax relief in the 1998 budget, we have focused most on low and middle income Canadians. We have focused on families with children and the deindexing of tax brackets, reducing the tax rate for the middle income bracket, raising the amount of basic income that is exempt from income tax, raising the level of the middle and top tax brackets and eliminating the 5% surtax.

All of this will lead to a 15% reduction, on average, for all Canadians, which does not include the benefits of the tax reductions in the last budget, 18% for low and middle income families and over 20% for families with children. All in all, more than nine million Canadians will see a reduction in their taxes just by changing the middle income tax rate.

There were some tax measures as well that were important to this region and to the high technology sector. In the telecommunications area, 75% of the activity in that sector happens in the national capital region. It will be of particular interest to that sector of the economy that the tax rate for service and high tech industries will drop from 28% to 21% over the next five years, with the first reduction kicking in by January 1, 2001.

The treatment of stock options, which is a major component of compensation for many in the high tech sector, has changed, so that they become taxable only when sold. That is a measure which the high tech sector has requested for some time in the interests of keeping and retaining highly qualified employees in that industry.

The other important measure to stimulate investment in small start-up companies is the rollover of $500,000 which is now permitted. Money which has been invested can now be rolled over into a new investment without incurring any capital gains. That will be a major generator for investment in somewhat high risk but nonetheless extremely important new initiatives in the high technology sector.

We are also supporting the foundation that feeds those new and growing sectors of the economy which will be producing an increasing proportion of jobs by funding 2,000 research chairs across Canada. We are ensuring that the basic research necessary to keep our economy innovative, growing and providing new opportunities for the next generation will continue.

The investment we have made in this budget in education by allowing people to receive far more support for their education tax free, from $500 up to $3,000, will make it easier for more young people to get a post-secondary education.

The fact that we are putting more money into the Canada Foundation for Innovation is another important investment in the future of our economy and employment for Canadians. I should mention that one initiative of that foundation is its investment in the newly launched National Capital Institute of Telecommunications in this region.

Lest anyone think that the only concern is money, dollars and cents, it is not. Canadians are concerned about health care. Notwithstanding what the Bloc member just said, she should acknowledge that the transfers to the provinces for health, post-secondary education and social services has increased by 25% in the last two budgets. We know that is to make up for cuts which had to be made to get our finances in order, but notwithstanding what some of the provinces are saying, 33% of all public spending in health care is by the federal government. That is a fairly significant increase and a significant contribution to an area that is primarily a provincial responsibility.

I want to leave time for my colleague to speak, with whom I will be splitting my time, so I will only mention very briefly what I think is an equally important contribution, and that is the $700 million that will be committed over the next three years for major environmental initiatives. There will be $210 million over three years for green energy development and the climate change action fund, and $100 million for a new sustainable development technology fund which will help companies develop new environmental technologies and bring them to market. This will accomplish two things for Canada and the rest of the world: finding solutions to environmental problems and finding them in a way that will also benefit the Canadian economy. There will be $100 million for a new green municipal investment fund, a revolving fund that will leverage private sector investment in such areas as waste management and water conservation at the municipal level, as well as $90 million over three years for a national strategy on species at risk.

I can only conclude that this is a well balanced budget. It meets the needs of Canadians, their expectations for tax relief after a number of years of very stringent financial and economic measures, and it also invests very clearly in a better future and quality of life for all Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of the hon. member. It is obvious from all of the surveys that health care is the number one issue across Canada. It is also obvious that, no matter what province we travel in, we can pick up a newspaper and there will be horror stories about the health care that is being provided because of lack of funding.

We know that we have an aging population. We know that modern technology in health care requires a great deal more money. We also know that the premise of sharing between the federal government and the provinces with the Canada Health Act is really based on a formula which is quite simple, 50:50. That has dropped, in some cases, to only 11% from the federal government to the provincial government. Health care is in serious trouble in Canada if it is to remain universal, as we would like it to be.

What does the hon. member see having to happen if we are to preserve universal health care in Canada?

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as one who represents the riding with the second highest proportion of seniors in the country, next only to Victoria, I am well aware of the growing need for health care services for seniors and of the demand that will placed on our system.

Let me first correct something the member said. He may not have heard me, but the fact is that the federal government contributes 33%, not 11% but 33%, of the public funding for health care in this country.

He also should be very well aware that our first priority, our first major investment in last year's budget, after we had gotten rid of the deficit, was to health care. We place a great importance on health care and on our public health care system. In that budget we made a major investment of $11.5 billion, plus we eliminated the cap that had been placed on transfers to Ontario, B.C. and Alberta. In Ontario alone that meant nearly $1 billion extra.

The major investment in this budget again was money for health care. In the last two budgets alone we increased by 25% the amount of money going to the provinces through the Canadian health and social transfer. That is 25% in just two years.

We are now at the highest level ever of federal contributions to the provinces in those areas. We also know that we have to work very closely with the provinces to look at better primary health care, home care, community care for people, not only as they age, but when they are ill and when they are recuperating from illnesses. There is a major job for us to do together to improve our health care system. Money is not the only thing that is needed. We also need new approaches, and community based approaches, which I fully support.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to return to the environment for a second. The hon. member mentioned the investment that the Government of Canada will make for species at risk. The legislation to address this will come forth in the next little while. All hon. members know that the government has not passed one piece of environmental legislation of its own since taking power.

Why would the government ignore the species at risk working group, which is a coalition of mining consortiums, woodlot owners, farming communities and environmental NGOs? Why would the government not accept the investment in time that those groups have made? The Minister of the Environment has chosen to ignore that particular initiative.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think anything could be further from the truth. In fact, there are some groups that would argue that the legislation for the protection of species at risk is not strong enough. Given that we have not yet seen it, I am not sure how anyone could make that judgment.

The fact is that the work of that working group has concerned itself with the needs of woodlot owners, agricultural producers and so on, as well as the need to balance all of those interests to produce legislation that will work in co-operation with the federal government, the provincial governments and private property owners. The work of the working group has very much guided the development of the legislation.

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was here in 1993 when the government began to pick up the broken pieces that were left from the government we replaced.

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

Be gentle.

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

I will, but I will be honest and factual at the same time.

I am proud to be here now, when we are in an era of surpluses and we can move forward to embrace the opportunities of the 21st century.

First, I would like to talk about those early days. Many of my colleagues were also here in 1993. They could tell the House what it was like.

Seven years ago this country was at an economic low. Nine years of the Mulroney government had played havoc with our federal debt. Estimates indicated that within eight years the debt had increased by $250 billion.

We were also left with a $42 billion deficit and we had to pay 33 cents of every revenue dollar to the interest on the debt. This was not paying back the debt, it was just the interest on the debt.

Unemployment was at 11.4% and high deficits and the resulting pressure on interest rates had affected, adversely I may add, economic growth and job creation. If this cycle had been allowed to continue Canada would have been in very, very bad shape. It may even have hit the New Zealand wall that everybody talks about.

As a government we made some pretty tough comprises and prioritized, down to the absolute detail I might add, and thought about the sorts of things that were important to Canadians. With the economy now gaining momentum and new jobs and opportunities available to us we are optimistic and we are ready for the 21st century.

A couple of months before the budget was announced I asked my constituents what they thought these investments should look like. The informal survey which I sent out asked them to list in the order of priority where they would like to see budget dollars spent. I received approximately 200 responses. The top three priorities—

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

HRDC, $1.2 billion?

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

No, Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely wrong. The landslide was for tax reduction, health care investments and debt reduction. That is what the survey said.

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

Where did the government put the HRDC money then?

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is typical of the Tories. They are just out of touch. That is the problem.

Important to my constituents also were environmental projects and job initiatives. These priorities were right in line with what the budget delivered. I cannot help but feel good about this budget when its top priorities were the same top priorities identified by my constituents.

Budget 2000 has something for everybody. Let us take a look at the tax cuts. Personal income taxes are being cut by an average of 15%. For families with children, they are going to be cut by 21% over five years and middle class families will receive a break of 23% from 26%. Restoring full indexation of the personal income tax system, which is something that took everybody by surprise, will end bracket creep caused by inflation. This means that Canadians will be able to earn more tax free income and more of their income will be taxed at a lower rate. It is a good deal.

We are lowering taxes when the nation's finances allow us to do so. These cuts have already been paid for through three consecutive balanced budgets. I want to make perfectly clear that we are not borrowing the money to pay for these cuts like the Mike Harris government has been doing in Ontario.

To make strides in our economy it takes more than lowering personal income tax. The budget will also help small businesses in my riding and across the country by lowering their tax rates. The budget also proposes to spur investment and encourage entrepreneurship by lowering capital gains tax, by taxing stock options only when the shares are sold, and by allowing a $500,000 tax free rollover for new ventures. It will also help by increasing resources available through the community futures program. This program delivers economic support to small and rural communities in the form of mentoring services, business counselling, training and loans.

As a sound investment the budget provides for health care and quality of life for Canadians. Building on the 1999 health care announcement, the budget increases the Canada health and social transfer payments to the provinces and the territories by $2.5 billion for health care and education. This means that the CHST will reach an all time high of almost $31 billion for the 2000-01 year.

In the last two years the federal cash support for health care and education in Ontario increased by 24%. The government provides transfers to health care in Ontario through cash and through tax points under the Canada health and social transfer. I want to stress a point that does not come out very often but should. All contributions taken into consideration, the federal government now provides in excess of 33 cents of every public dollar spent by governments in Canada. My constituents want us to continue our responsible fiscal management and to continue paying down the debt.

As budget 2000 reports from 1997 to 1998 when the budget was first balanced and through to 2000 to 2002, the growth in program spending will be held roughly to the growth in population and inflation. The unemployment rate is 4.5% lower than the 11.4% the government inherited shortly after taking office in October 1993.

Over 1.8 million new jobs have been created since then. The budget continues the principles under the debt repayment plan, setting aside a $3 billion contingency reserve each year to ensure a balanced budget. If we do not need the reserve it automatically goes to debt repayment. Previous governments set aside long term deficit targets that were never met. This government's approach to budgeting is to set credible two year rolling deficit targets. This means the government is held accountable on a continuous basis.

There are many more important investments outlined in the budget to make Canada more innovative such as in new technology and leading edge research and innovation in research hospitals, universities and the private sector. There are many supports for the environmental initiatives of clean air, water and health habitats. On the community level there are $25 million to help municipalities and communities to determine best approaches toward waste management, renewable energy, water conservation, and the list goes on. There are $100 million in a revolving fund, the green municipal investment fund, to support projects in areas such as sustainable communities, urban transit, energy and water savings, and the list goes on.

People in my riding are very interested in protecting the environment. With the headwaters of three rivers, the Credit, the Humber and the Saugeen, plus the Grand River system and Nottawasaga in my riding, they are very interested in initiatives that can help in their protection. The creation of a new sustainable development technology fund will help companies develop new environmental technologies and bring them to market.

In another initiative, building on local efforts to preserve natural habitats and species, the federal government is cutting by half the capital gains tax arising from donations to ecologically sensitive lands and will be providing $90 million over three years to protect species at risk.

Other initiatives include increasing the tax exemption for income from scholarships. That was one I pushed for. It has been increased from $500 to $3,000. There will be $90 million over three years to strengthen the government's ability to regulate biotechnology products and processes, and $160 million over two years so that federal government services will be offered to Canadians on line.

There is also a proposal to work out a multi-year agreement with the provinces and the private sector to improve highways and municipal infrastructure, including green infrastructure and affordable housing in urban and rural communities.

My constituents were happy with the budget. I have not to date received one phone call complaining about the budget. I can remember back in 1993 my fax machine going crazy. We could not keep paper in it. There were no tax increases.

My constituents were afraid that we were going to be like the previous government. We are not. Canadians are very comfortable and very confident in the government's management of the country.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, did the hon. member who just spoke so eloquently in the House also inform his constituents that the GST and the NAFTA, which the government was to get rid of, are still in place? Promises were made by the 1993 Liberal government the member talked about, but they were not kept.

Did the member tell his constituents that in 1993 there were approximately $16.8 billion in health care, which in 1998 dropped to $12.6 billion or a reduction of some $4.2 billion from 1993 to 1998? Did the hon. member tell his constituents that the reason health care has such a problem right now is that the Liberals took the money out of the budget in the first place? Did he tell them that $2.5 billion which the government talked about in the budget was over four years, and not $2.5 billion this year? Did the member tell his constituents these facts before he sent out the survey?

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the short answer to that question is yes, and they agreed with what we are doing.

The hon. member across the way talked about the GST. One of the first things I told my constituents in the 1993 campaign was that whatever we do with the GST it generates $18 billion worth of revenue for the government, that the government needs that money, and that if we do away with the tax we will run an extra $18 billion deficit.

In the last six and a half years the government has not only solved these problems but are now in the black. The previous government could not get its act together in this regard. The short answer to his question is yes, my constituents knew about all decisions the government was making and agreed with them, because I am back here for a second term.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey is a well known farmer, but today I think his primary allegiance is to the Liberal Party. His blinders prevent him from seeing that the Minister of Finance's most recent budget sounds a death knell for agriculture in Canada and in Quebec.

In the past, his government cut assistance for Western grain transportation and prices plummeted. When a country is unable to feed its population, it is poor and depends on other countries.

How is it that this member, who raises primarily poultry, has not spoken out in defence of farmers? He certainly did not hesitate to stab his leader in the back.

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague across the way used to sit on the standing committee on agriculture. He has an agriculture background and should know better. Of course I stand up for the interest of farmers. I was out west at least three times last year. We worked hard to get an extra $240 million to western farmers.

The minister of agriculture just signed an agreement with the provincial ministers on another long term program to support agriculture in Canada. I do not know where the member across the way has been living, but obviously he should sit down, read the newspapers and read Hansard because he is missing a lot of really good information on what is happening in agriculture.

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party will have to let all of Canada decide in the next election whether or not he will be returned.

The budget completely ignores defence and the replacement of the Sea Kings, which in my riding is a very important issue. As well it ignores a very vital issue in Atlantic Canada, a shipbuilding policy which the Liberal caucus of Atlantic Canada said it wanted included in the budget. Would the member respond to those two issues, please?

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the member across the way is coming from. He talks about a shipbuilding program. We just finished building a brand new fleet of Halifax class frigates. The Canadian navy is brand new again. There are contracts already let out to replace the Sea Kings. I believe that will happen next year. More money is being put into defence as a result of this budget. I am not sure where he is coming from, but he had better get his facts straight.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have an opportunity to take part in the budget debate. I should say at the start that I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver East.

I would like to make use of the time I have by pointing out not only what the budget does but certainly what it fails to do and how it affects my riding of Winnipeg Centre. I would like to point out missed opportunities. I would like to point out where the government has been out and out negligent and irresponsible in not doing obvious things that needed to be done and choosing as a priority to do things that were politically expedient and politically to its advantage. I hope by these arguments, Mr. Speaker, that you will be convinced as well that the government missed a serious opportunity.

The reason I say it is a missed opportunity is that the Minister of Finance started this process with a unique problem that we have not seen in many years: a surplus budget, a budget that could have been put to use to fix many of the social issues the country is demanding be fixed in short order.

To get the basic premise, let us look at where the surplus came from. The most obvious source from a working person's point of view is the EI surplus. People seem to have forgotten about this issue. The changes the government brought in to employment insurance made it more difficult to qualify. Claimants could collect for a shorter period of time and their weekly benefit would be reduced. Obviously the government would have a surplus.

I do not think, even in its wildest dreams, the government would have known it would enjoy a windfall of $700 million a month in surplus, taken directly out of the pockets of unemployed workers, the most vulnerable people arguably in our whole community. That is $700 million a month, not a year. That is staggering. We can see, as I have said before, it is a perverted sort of Robin Hood to rob from the poor and give to the rich in the form of tax cuts. We should be well aware of that before we go into the main arguments.

The government stumbled upon another windfall. It was a very calculated and cynical move which will have repercussions for every pension plan across the country. It took the surplus from the public service plan away from the beneficiaries of the public service pension plan. The government did not steal it, but it took it right out of that plan to use for whatever it wanted in its general revenue. I predict the government will pay the political price for taking those surplus revenues out of that pension plan.

We noticed the minister responsible for the Treasury Board had no sooner done his dastardly deed than he had to leave this place. There was no way politically he could survive taking $30 billion of surplus out of the public service pension plan, money that should have gone to improve the pensions of those beneficiaries. That is the second source of revenue.

It was not real sound fiscal management that led to the surplus. It was the finding of these buckets of money, stumbling across these buckets of dough. Anybody could do that.

The Liberals failed to listen to Canadians in the prebudget consultation. They did tour the country to listen to Canadians. Invariably everywhere government members went, Canadians told them they wanted one thing done and one thing only. They wanted the health care system fixed once and for all. There was no question. There was no debate about it. The number one priority was to fix our health care system.

What did we see done, even though the government had the astronomical windfall of a surplus? The government is giving $2.5 billion, not per year but over four years. And it is not just for my province of Manitoba. It is for the whole country. My province of Manitoba's share will be about $20 million a year, or enough to keep the hospitals open for two days.

The great renewal of spending on health care amounts to two days budgeting for the province of Manitoba. It is so small that it is almost insignificant. It is offensive frankly. It leads to greater cynicism in the electorate because they were consulted. They said what they needed and the government did not listen to them. Instead, what did the government choose to do? It chose to use the money, which as I pointed out it took from unemployed workers to a large degree, for tax cuts for the wealthy.

For every dollar in tax cuts that is given back into the system, two cents goes for health care. How is that for skewed priorities? Yet when Canadians were asked, tax cuts ranked number seven, eight or nine on their list of priorities. They wanted their health care system back. They wanted post-secondary education addressed so their kids would not have to graduate with a small mortgage. They wanted all these issues fixed.

Canadians wanted something done about child poverty. I should not have to remind members, especially those who have been here for any length of time, that in 1989 it was members of parliament who passed a unanimous resolution to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. For the first time since 1989, we are in a financial position to that, yet no effort has been made to do so. Again, I point to a failure on the part of the government because the opportunity was there and it chose not to act.

Dante reserved a special depth of his hell for those who had the ability to prevent evil and chose not to. That was the lowest depth of Dante's inferno. Just as obnoxious and just as foul to me as those who had the ability to do something noble and honourable and elected not to is the failure of the people in this place.

I can point to another obvious shortcoming in that those people over there cut, hacked and slashed programs for many, many years without looking for other sources of revenue or for ways to preclude the need to do that, or what they thought was the need. Without being vague about it, I will point to one obvious thing they could have done.

I introduced a motion that was passed in the House of Commons a year ago to energy retrofit all of our publicly owned buildings. The federal government owns 50,000 buildings. It spends billions of dollars a year in energy costs. Many of those buildings are outdated, obsolete and are absolute energy hogs. They waste energy and they pollute.

If we undertook a serious initiative to energy retrofit all our publicly owned buildings, we would not only create thousands of jobs, we would reduce our operating costs by as much as $1 billion a year. We would also reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions as per our obligations under the Kyoto convention.

Again it was a missed opportunity because it seems that side of the House is devoid of ideas. That side is out of gas in terms of creative things to do.

Members on that side of the House voted in favour of that motion because they thought it was a really good idea. That was a year and a half ago. They have not done diddley-squat in that regard. They could be the example. They should set the example for the private sector to do the same. In this northern climate we should show the world how we can conserve energy and how we can use our precious energy resources in a wiser way, a way that works for us instead of being the victims of some international oil cartel. It was another missed opportunity.

The finest achievement any government can aspire to is to elevate the standard of the living conditions of the people it represents. That should be the goal. That is why we are here. If we can only keep our eyes on the ball, our job and goal should be to elevate the standard of the living conditions of the people we represent. If we did not deviate from that, we would not have so much confusion in terms of what we should do. Let us do what is right in a way that would really move society forward.

A basic tenet and truth is that society does not move forward until we all move forward together. If we leave a significant number of people behind, we do not really move forward. Freedom is only privilege extended unless it is enjoyed by all people. That is a basic tenet that we must adhere to.

The motion to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000 was one of the most significant things ever agreed upon in the House of Commons. Governments to this point through mismanagement by the Tories et cetera did find themselves in a disastrous financial situation, but in recent years money is no longer an excuse. If money is not an issue, what does that lead us to believe? That the government just does not care about that subject. Money is not a barrier. Money is not an obstacle. The government has barrels of money. It has money coming out of its ears.

I believe that a society shall be judged not by the might of its cities, not by the grandeur of its statues and not by the power of its armies. A society will be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable people: the unemployed, the disenfranchised, the poverty stricken.

When all the dust settles and all of us are in our graves, society will judge this piece of history by what steps we took to move that part of society forward. The budget does nothing to move society forward as a whole. We do not move forward unless we all move forward together. We are not moving forward at all when the gap between the rich and the poor grows ever wider and wider.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but be somewhat concerned when I hear the kind of talk I have just heard, things like oodles of money and scads of money.

That is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into a situation where we were dependent upon foreign borrowing to pay for our entire health care system and our entire public pension system just seven years ago. That is exactly the kind of thinking that would have destroyed those systems had something like the Asian crisis happened before we started getting our deficit under control.

I take issue with the member's statement that the government has not done what needs to be done for society. He has to acknowledge that once there was a surplus budget the first thing the government did was put money back into health care, back into post-secondary education, back into all those things to create a strong and healthy society.

These two budgets have increased spending in those areas by 25%. Health care and education are the foundations of a strong society. Those areas of spending are now higher in actual dollars than when we took office. I would like the hon. member to respond to that.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, back in 1995 the CHST when it was created was $19 billion a year. The Liberal government brought it down to $11.5 billion per year and is slowly incrementally jacking it back up. It went to $12.5 billion. In this budget it is supposed to go to $14.5 billion and even $15 billion. That is still $4 billion less in actual spending than it was before.

The government cannot use smoke and mirrors forever. Canadians do not believe it and they frankly do not accept this stuff about transferring tax points. They want cash on the barrelhead. They want to see the federal government's actual participation in health, social spending and post-secondary education. Those are the priorities we heard about when we consulted with Canadians. That is what they told us. They wanted the government to use this budget to fix health care, to stop the crisis in post-secondary education tuitions and to do something about social spending to elevate the standard of living for all Canadians. If that is not our goal, I do not know what is.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre for his remarks today.

I would like him to elaborate a moment longer on his private member's motion in terms of the energy retrofit of those 50,000 government buildings. This is one of the better ideas I have ever come across in the House. Both sides of the House passed that motion. What has the government done after one year? What is it doing to create jobs and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to elaborate on this subject.

Motion No. 300 passed with a great majority in the House of Commons. The concept was that we can create jobs, reduce operating costs in publicly owned buildings and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, all at no cost to the taxpayer because the private sector is willing to finance those jobs and be paid back slowly out of the energy savings. In other words, it is off balance sheet financing that we could use to finance this project.

There are 50,000 federally owned public buildings in the country. Only about 100 have had significant energy retrofitting done to them. Even at a 1,000 per year, it would take 50 years to finish the project.

We want to see the government, now that the motion has passed, to exercise this and expand the program so that all federally owned public buildings are retrofitted so that they are completely energy efficient and do not belch out harmful greenhouse gas emissions as they do today.

[The Speaker]

It is almost 2 o'clock so we will go to statements by members.