Debates of March 27th, 2000

The Budget

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The hon. member has somewhat of a point. I would ask the hon. member to keep his speech on the budget.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I can understand that the members opposite do not want me discussing the spending habits of their former leader. I do not mind the fact that they would raise some concern about that. In relationship to this budget, could it be that the newest baby born in this place has somehow changed its spots? I think not.

Let us talk about health care. I do not care what we want to call it, but we have a party which clearly would abandon and scrap the Canada Health Act. If that would not have an impact on the budget—

[An hon. member]

That is a lie.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

The member says that is a lie. The former leader of the former Reform Party who used to occupy those benches has called for the scrapping of the Canada Health Act without any kind of plan or explanation as to what it would be replaced with. I can tell members what it would be replaced with. It would be replaced with a privatized, U.S. style health care system which the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health and this government would not stand for.

We could look at delivery mechanisms.

What I find really interesting is the confusion of members opposite of all parties. I do not want to single out members of the fifth party. It has been purported that the only safe seat is occupied by the member for Fundy—Royal. That was probably true before his leader opened his mouth in support of some privatization of health care coming from western Canada. That might have been true before the divisions in his party occurred when his leader did not support the clarity bill, one of the finest and clearest pieces of legislation ever put through this place. And yet other members over there did not agree with their leader. We can understand their confusion.

Let us talk about health care. This government is committed. The CHST payments have an established floor of a $11.5 billion. Members opposite were crying for nothing more than tax cuts leading up to the last budget. What happened? After we set the floor at $11.5 billion, after we provided $58 billion in tax relief, after we completely eliminated the $42 billion deficit left to us by the great legacy of the Conservative Party, after we invested in science and technology, created new seats in universities for our future, worked with our youth, helped in retraining, worked with people who were unemployed—after we did all of those things—we also provided tax cuts.

Then what happened? They stood and said “You have not transferred enough to health care”.

We put an additional $2.5 billion on the table for health care. Guess what? We found out that last year, when we put an additional $3.5 billion on the table for health care, the provinces of Quebec and Ontario chose not to use that money. They left it sitting in a trust account, wisely invested I am sure.

I do not understand. The people in my province and in my riding do not understand how they could eliminate beds in hospitals, how they could fill up emergency departments, how they could continually cry for more money to be given to health care, and then it comes out that they have not even spent the money that was allocated to them.

If anyone over there thinks that the government is about to write blank cheques for anything, they are sadly mistaken. The health care system must be accountable. It must be accessible to all, as we know, and the government will ensure that happens. However, we will not do it by simply throwing money at a problem without a clear direction with all health ministers in the country, from all provinces and territories, sitting down with our health minister and working out a deal to ensure that we have sustainable, affordable, accessible health care for generations to come.

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

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the hon. member's speech. His speech was very indicative of what we saw in the terrible budget that was tabled a few weeks back.

During essentially 70% of his speech he never uttered the words “tax cut”. When the rest of the industrialized world is taking giant leaps to reduce taxes, the government is taking baby steps and jeopardizing this country's competitiveness well into the future.

When will the government grow up and learn what a tax cut really is?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is really interesting to get a lecture from a member of the Conservative Party on tax cuts and fiscal management. We know that the former leader of that party, the former Prime Minister and his government, introduced the GST. We know that. We understand that the Conservatives did that. We understand that they introduced the excise tax on gasoline. We understand that they did that.

At the same time, we understand that while the Conservatives want to stand and cheer on some of their accomplishments, they left office with an overdraft of $42 billion, with record debt, with an inability for the government to have any flexibility to deal with its fiscal program without making serious changes in the relationships that existed with everyone in the country.

This government bit the bullet. Now we are rewarding Canadians for their hard work by making those tax cuts.

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

Madam Speaker, again I listened intently to my colleague from the Liberal Party. He quotes numbers like $2.5 billion for health care. The reality is that $2.5 billion announced in the budget is for health care, education and other social programs over a four year period. It is not just destined for health care.

If he is convinced that the health care announcement which the government made is so positive, why is every premier and territorial leader in the country upset and why is every other person who has ever accessed health care in the country, who has used home care and so on, upset with the Liberal government?

Several members on the other side, the Atlantic caucus as they call it, produced a document called “Catching the Wave”. In that document they called upon the government to introduce a shipbuilding policy, and I notice that the budget completely left that out.

On Wednesday we will be having a vote on Bill C-213 from the Bloc Quebecois. We will be initiating that. Will the hon. member be supporting the other Liberal members of his caucus in supporting a very important initiative for shipbuilding policy in the country? The budget certainly was not inclusive in that regard.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite knows full well that a budget is a document that shows leadership and gives direction for policies. He is talking about a specific issue that would have to do with economic development. The government has led the way in terms of economic development.

I want to respond to the hon. member. I am not sure what his question really was because I heard him taking the opportunity to bash us again on health care and then saying that was not his question. Let us be clear. The government set the level of transfer payments at $11.5 billion. We added $2.5 billion to it. We are committed to a sustainable health care program without a doubt, but we will not simply open the vault and write a blank cheque. That is not what the Canadian public wants.

While I am at it, let me suggest to the member that there is no one responsible in the country who would suggest that somehow the provincial governments should wash their hands of their responsibility as taxing authorities with relation to health care. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot take transfers from the federal treasury, invest them in some kind of savings account and then cry poor to the federal government. The member opposite might want to make political mileage out of that, but the Canadian people will not be fooled because they know better.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I take this opportunity to talk a bit about a subject which relates to some of the previous interventions. For example, the member for Selkirk—Interlake talked about the poor condition of aboriginal families in his province. Those aboriginal people have children who are in even worse condition, so my subject is the fate and the presence of children in the most recent budget.

There were those of us both within the government caucus and across the way who agitated and worked for a children's and families' budget to be the theme of this year's millennium budget. I am looking at the hon. member for Shefford as one of the allies in this cause. In some ways we were a little disappointed. We did not get the package deal we wanted. However, let me tell the House what we did get and what we hoped to get. Part of the function of a budget speech is not only to look back to the budget but to look forward to the next budget, to the great unfinished work we have before us.

Those of us who agitate and work on behalf of children and their families see that the children and their families need two things. They need more income but they also need support at the community level with services. I particularly talk about the case of parents with young pre-school children.

What was good about the budget from the point of view of child and family policy was that we focused on three matters of income. First, we reduced taxes which put more disposable income in the hands of families with young children. Second, because we wanted to make a statement that the early years are the most important years, we extended the parental benefit system from six months to a year for those children who are born after December 31, 2000. Third, we increased the amount available for the child tax credit and the national child benefit system.

All those things are important because they put more disposable income in the hands of families with young children, but disposable income alone will not be the answer to what families need.

What families need in their daily lives is for there to be a system of support at the community level. Whatever choices they may make in the workplace, whether they choose to work inside or outside the home, and whatever degree of risk their children may or may not be exposed to, the community will be there for them.

With the change in family life over the last 30 years we know that the traditional role of community fulfilled by informal networks has disappeared. With 70% of Canadian women of child bearing age working either part time or full time, we know that neighbourhoods have changed.

It was therefore interesting to look at the unfinished work of the budget, the first social project of the 21st century for this parliament, and the following words of the finance minister in his speech:

That is why federal and provincial governments agreed to develop a national children's agenda, to expand the capacity of governments, voluntary organizations and our communities to provide the services and support upon which so many of our families and their children rely.

He pointed to the hope of the government for a national action plan to be arrived at by December of this year, with provincial governments on a system of support services at the community level to help young children and their families.

This will be the first great test of the social union framework agreement. It will require the provinces and the federal government to sit down and work out what a national action plan would mean that would allow communities to access an early childhood development services fund to do a better job in filling in the gaps, which we all know to be present in our communities, if we are in the business of raising young children.

This will be an extraordinarily important and difficult operation. I hope we arrive at such an agreement but it will require the agreement of the provinces. It will require the support of communities to show us what they would do with the money. It will require the support of parents in whatever situation they find themselves to put pressure on us as politicians to do it. In turn, I hope it will trigger in the next budget a fund for community development services for our youngest children.

This will not be an easy matter, but what I find so heartening is that within this caucus and across parliament there are people who are dedicated to improving the lives of children and their families.

All of us understand that the magic of a democratic society rests in its civil society, in its neighbourhoods and communities. The family may be the building block upon which we construct family policy without understanding the magic of community. Why is it that some communities do a better job in preparing young children for school and making them confident about their future? Why is it that other communities with the same or more income do not do such a good job? It goes beyond income. It goes to the matter of social cohesion. It goes to the things which will overcome income if we do it right.

You have in your constituency, Mr. Speaker, a community which does this job. Port Colborne is an example of an area which goes beyond income to produce a kind of wovenness. Our challenge as we look to the future budget is to support such communities. The federal government and the provinces should sit down together on a national action plan that will put in place the things families need, whether it is child care, parenting resources, parenting courses, drop-in centres, playgrounds, nutrition programs, and in particular nutrition programs for expectant mothers because that is when so much crucial brain development takes place.

We need to put in place a system so that every family knows where to find the support it needs and we do not have mothers living in isolation, cut off from the community. We need to do it in a way which recognizes the character of every Canadian community. If we do our job well we reduce the risks all Canadian children experience.

What is so terrifying about our situation? It is true that poverty is a major risk factor for Canadian children and that 40% of poor children experience emotional or learning difficulties when they are in school. It is also true that 20% of the best off children in the country also experience those risks. There are more middle class children with emotional and learning difficulties in school than poor children because the middle class is so much bigger.

My plea is for all of us as we look to next year's budget to understand that we have a great piece of work ahead of us in working toward a national action plan to provide services at the community level for Canada's children. If we do our job right, this may be the greatest thing for which all of us will ultimately be remembered.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Liberals promise a future for our children and for health care. Yet they still have not been able to maintain their 1993 promise on the day care concern across the country. They also failed to break their promise on the GST.

On the child tax credit, which they talked an awful lot about, they never put in strict guidelines to say that provinces could not claw that money back. This happens now in my province. My fear is that with the additional money through the child tax credit again the province of Nova Scotia will claw that money back because the federal government refuses to tell the province that under no circumstances can that money be clawed back. I would like the hon. member's comments on that.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member may be surprised to know that I agree with him on two issues. Some of us who ran in the 1993 election and took the promise of a national child care strategy seriously do not consider that promise stale dated. Some of us believe it is an ideal toward which we should be working.

We also understand it is only part of a bundle of services that have to be undertaken at the community level. We do not restrict ourselves to the vision of a national child care strategy, though it would be central to the piece I have described on community.

With regard to the clawback provision and the looseness of the reinvestment framework strategy for the national child benefit, I agree with him again. Whatever else we do in our national action plan we must make sure that a kind of discipline is imposed on ourselves and on the provinces. That discipline will come through the social union framework agreement when we allow ourselves to look at outcomes, to be held accountable to the Canadian public and to make outcomes like school readiness or birth weight, for example, part of the whole package in the accountability regime. We are not as far apart as he might have thought.

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

Mr. Speaker, one part of the speech I did not pick up was actually mentioned by a couple of members. The government has allocated more revenues with respect to the environment. We all know that the environment was the sixth largest department when we were in government. Now it is the very smallest, the 21st largest.

Was this initiative, this little tidbit of cash, put in place to assist the government in passing its first piece of environmental legislation of its own? Is that why we had a bit of an augmentation in the environmental budget?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to weave the environmental piece back into the story of children by pointing out that in the budget we have allocated money, as the hon. member suggested, for the environmental health piece.

Which are the most vulnerable populations in terms of environmental health? It is very young children and very old people. Anybody who wishes to undertake a family or child based policy, as the hon. member suggested, has to take a horizontal view of all these questions and issues. We understand that if we do a survey of government departments whose policies have an impact on young children, we could easily find 16 or 17 including the Department of the Environment.

When we undertake these great challenges for the 21st century, the challenge will be to take traditional line governments and traditional orders of government between the provinces and the feds and ask how in these cross-cutting issues we can develop a full policy which makes sense in a holistic way, which takes into account the environmental dimensions of a children's policy or the childhood dimensions of an environmental policy. The two are inextricably linked.

[The Speaker]

It being 6.15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the amendment now before the House.

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Speaker]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Division No. 1220

[The Speaker]

I declare the amendment lost.

The House resumed from March 23 consideration of Bill C-13, an act to establish the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, to repeal the Medical Research Council Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, as reported with amendments from the committee.

Canadian Institutes Of Health Research Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions on the report stage amendments of Bill C-13. The question is on Motion No. 1.

The division on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 5 to 7, 11, 18, 23 and 24.

(The House divided on Motion No. 1, which was negatived on the following division:)