Debates of April 13th, 2000

Budget Implementation Act, 2000

[Rick Laliberte, NDP, Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would be more than happy to highlight some of the political aspirations of certain parties.

Not so long ago I knew a party called the Reform Party which leaned a bit to the right. Some of its aspirations were cost recovery. A major right wing agenda is to look at cost recovery in health and for-profit health care. Cost recovery in national parks is a reality. It is a dream come true for a right wing government. Unfortunately we have a Liberal government that seems to be listening to this right wing rhetoric.

We have to consider the social conscience of the country. We have to consider the needs of our communities, our single parents and our students who cannot afford to use the parks, as the member said. We do have to raise these issues but we have to make it a Canadian initiative. We cannot talk from both sides of our mouth. If we care about our young people we have to invest our tax dollars in areas that will help them. We cannot talk about tax cuts and then diminish our services and programs. I am talking about program and service enhancement.

It is nice that the hon. member has raised this issue. Maybe we can get the government's assurance that it will keep the program and services enhancement, especially in budgets to come. As I said there has been a swing away from cutbacks and more expending surpluses into the future.

In some areas the infrastructure development is very unfair. I tried to drive to Ottawa on the Trans Canada Highway. It is a minefield coming here through northern Ontario. It is a single lane highway that barely has any shoulders.

There is an intercontinental highway system just to the south of us. Maybe that should be looked at in terms of infrastructure development and job creation. There are highways needed in western Canada. Grain trucks have been pounding our highways because grain is no longer being hauled by train.

These are the sad facts and sad results. We have to look at investments, which I call regional development investments. If the infrastructure program is a possible avenue to make this happen, I would very much welcome it, but it was not evident in the finance minister's release.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think we could agree with a number of the items the member mentioned.

One area which he did not talk about in his presentation was regarding the government's talk about showing this huge surplus at the same time that there is a $580 billion debt with a $43 billion interest payment on it every year. One of the big concerns I had certainly before coming to this place in 1993 was the fact that no government seemed to be dealing with that. I was rather shocked that the present budget did not deal with that item.

With $14.5 billion for health care and $43 billion for interest payments, does the hon. member not think that by dealing with that debt we could in fact help our social programs which all of us are concerned about?

[Rick Laliberte, NDP, Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose we have to have a balanced approach. Certainly our party has taken the approach of looking at the deficit, the debt and program and service enhancement.

By creating more wage earners through the opportunities that we talked about, investment into infrastructure development, instead of recipients of social services, we would see an increase in national revenues. We would see a better economic cycle within the regions.

People talk about the fear of globalization. The hon. member should live in northern Canada and see the remnants of what our globalization was. The Hudson's Bay Company and its stores still monopolize our groceries after it tapped the sceptre here and said “This is now Rupert's Land and part of England”. We still live over there, yet we live here.

[Howard Hilstrom, Reform, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

That is not true. The North West Company runs all that.

[Rick Laliberte, NDP, Churchill River, SK]

The North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, under the same guise, under the same name, still have the same colonizing effect today. Colonization and globalization are in a similar realm. Let us invest in our people and the people will get us out of our troubles.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly my pleasure to speak in the debate on the budget that was set down on February 28, 2000.

A lot of people looked forward to that budget. They thought we would get a millennium surprise, that we would get a forward looking 21st century type of budget. Instead, I think we got a shell game where money was transferred from one place to another place to another place. A lot of people, not able to follow the movement, said at least it was better than what we have had before.

Let us talk about some of the failures of that budget. Mr. Speaker, I know you are most interested in pinpointing those because obviously within your caucus you would have been told all of the good points. Let me try to highlight some of the less than good points in the budget. I know you are looking forward to this and will take accurate notes.

First there is the total failure to even recognize the fact that we have a debt. There is talk of this great surplus and what will be done with the money, how the government can create more programs. There is program spending. Certainly Liberals love program spending. They have always loved to create programs because programs lead to bureaucracy. Bureaucracy leads to boondoggles. Boondoggles lead to ways to patronize friends. It is a wonderful scene, except for the taxpayer and all those people who are deprived of that money.

What about that debt? What about that $588 billion? Let us go back and see where that came from. In 1969 we had no debt. By 1972 we had $18 billion in debt. As we went along through the spending years we ended up coming to about $160 billion in debt by 1983-84. At that point everybody said we must stop the growth of that debt.

A new party came into power and said it was going to stop it and it would not let it grow any more. Of course we know that by 1987 we had a debt somewhere in the neighbourhood of just under $300 billion. At that point of course a new party, the forerunner to the Canadian Alliance, was born as a response to that huge debt. But that same government carried on. By the time it finished, the debt was $490 billion with a deficit of some $42 billion.

Since then we now have a debt of roughly $580 billion. We have an interest payment of about $43 billion, depending on how the economy goes and so on. Let us look at where that places us. We spend somewhere around $12 billion on education, $14 billion on health care and $22 billion on pensions. There is Indian affairs at $7 billion and defence at $9 billion. The critical thing in these numbers is the fact that we have $43 billion in interest payments. That is what we are passing on to future generations.

How does the budget deal with that? It says that as long as everything is going fine, we may be able to put $3 billion on that debt. Let us figure out the mathematics of that one. If there is $580 billion and we add $3 billion a year while paying $43 billion a year in interest, then we are not getting ahead. A home could not be run that way. A business could not be run that way. A farm could not be run that way. They would be bankrupt. They would be taken over.

Obviously it is a great disappointment for Canadian taxpayers. Future citizens and taxpayers, our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren are going to be burdened by that debt. This budget did not even address that.

One could put one's head in the sand and not recognize that as a serious problem for our country. That is why some economists are predicting that within 50 years this country will have a standard of living at 50% that of the Americans. Right now the quality of life, the standard of living is somewhere around 70% that of the Americans. Is that acceptable? Is that what we want to leave for our children and our grandchildren? I do not and I think I can speak for my colleagues in saying that they do not either.

That is the first failure, Mr. Speaker. I know you are looking forward to hearing some more so I will satisfy your curiosity.

Let us talk about the business community and employment benefits and the shell game that is played. The government trumpets the fact that it has been able to cut EI premiums and that has saved business and individual workers a great amount of money.

About 38% of people can actually be eligible for employment insurance but we do not talk about that figure. We also do not talk about the fact that for the last five years and into the next couple of years, CPP increases totally wipe out the EI premium decreases. There is a net loss to individuals and businesses. That means that small businesses, and remember that is most businesses in Canada, are going to employ fewer people, are going to have more overhead costs and are going to have a greater chance of failure. This may not affect the big guys but it sure does affect the 90% of Canadian small businesses.

What about the 11% increase in HRDC grants? I know it is in the right phase of the cycle to be increasing because if we look at HRDC grants and contributions, they go with elections. The year after an election they are at their lowest point. As we get closer to an election, grants and contributions increase. One could say it is natural that in the 2000 budget there would be an 11% increase in grants. What about those grants? We have heard much in the House about the boondoggles. Where it gets right down to the nitty-gritty would be something I experienced last Sunday.

A band in my community is leaving this coming Sunday for Australia. It is going to be accompanied by a number of teachers and parents. This band is doing a cultural exchange and wanted to leave something in Australia that was a celebration of the millennium from the town of Innisfail in Canada to the town of Innisfail in Australia where it would be spending three weeks. The cost was under $1,000 for a plaque. The government chose to say in a letter to the band that this was not a very good millennium project, that it does not really help Canadians to be good Canadians, to be proud Canadians.

When I wished them well at the band concert on Sunday, I felt sorry for the government for the letter that was read to the parents and the students. Many people said to me after, “What about the $250,000 for a fountain in the river? How about the canoe museum? How about the armouries with a good view of the fountain?” They asked about the $7 million spent on golf courses and sock factories. They asked how it was possible to be ineligible for any funding for a project that was truly, I believe, a millennium project. The only answer I had was that perhaps they had voted the wrong way. That is a sorry commentary in a democracy.

There is another example in my riding and I should have brought the letter to read but I can paraphrase it. The letter was from the Deputy Prime Minister. The Alberta Sports Hall of Fame is celebrating 100 years of sports in the province of Alberta, Canada. It wanted to do a special display for all Albertans who had been on Olympic teams representing their country over the last 100 years. If that is not a millennium project, then I do not know what is.

The letter from the Deputy Prime Minister indicated that this project did not qualify because it was asking for 100% funding. The community raised $3 million to build the building which is finished and opens next month. The cost of the celebration of the Alberta athletes who were in the Olympics for Canada was going to be $750,000 of which $500,000 has been raised.

They were asking for funding from the Government of Canada for a millennium project to celebrate 100 years of Canadian athletes coming from Alberta on Olympic teams. The answer from the government was that it did not fund projects 100%, so it denied their request for the millennium project. There was $3 million raised in the community of which $500,000 was for that particular project. That is not 100% funding coming from the federal government. That is the kind of stuff that happens with these grants. We have to be from the right place and not a safe seat or something like that in order to get that. People in my community do not find that very appealing and are not pleased with the budget raising the grants by 11%.

Let us talk about health care. How did this budget deal with health care? It gave $2.5 billion over four years for the subject that all Canadians are concerned about. Seventy-five per cent of Canadians polled say that they are worried about their health care. A poll done by the department which was released yesterday said that 70% of Canadians felt this budget did not give enough money to health care.

The government says it has returned all the money. How does it figure that? It is difficult to explain but let me attempt to. It says that there are tax credits that make up half of its donation to the provinces. Where did that come from? In 1977 the provinces and the federal government agreed on these tax point transfers. Immediately upon doing that, the federal government raised its taxes. The provinces were to have room to raise their taxes. But they could not do it because the federal government had already filled the space for that tax. They would have had to raise taxes and take the blame for raising them for health care. The tax credit is really a figment of the government's mind. The money is really not there.

Let us talk about actual transfers of cash. What has the government done with that? In 1993 the cash transfers were $18.8 billion for health care. In 1994 they were $18.7 billion. In 1995 they were $18.4 billion. In 1996 there were $14.8 billion. In 1997 they were $12.5 billion. In 1998 they were $12.5 billion. In 1999 they were $14.5 billion. Guess what? Over the the next four years they will be $15.5 billion. Remember, they were $18.5 billion in 1993.

What has happened in between besides inflation? There has been improvement in technology. Increased costs in our health care system and medication have gone up by 17% per year. These have not been accounted for in the cash transfers to the provinces. Why does the health care system have a real crunch right now? Because of the lack of funding. Who is to blame? It is not just the provinces. The federal government can be blamed for it as much as the provinces.

This government does not have a vision for health care in the 21st century. We have a 1960s state run socialized health care system that would compare to North Korea and Cuba. We do not have a health care system that would compare to any of the industrialized countries. We are rated 23rd out of 29 in terms of health care in the industrialized world.

We are in fifth place in spending on health care. We have fifth place spending with 23rd place ranking in our health care delivery. There is certainly something wrong there.

I should state that we are opposed to two tier, U.S. style, for-profit health care. I am sorry that the hon. member who alluded to that earlier has left the Chamber. We are opposed to that. We can clearly state that we do not believe in that. That is not what Canadians want. Canadians would like to be in the top third of OECD countries in the delivery of health care. That is what they would like.

This budget did not deliver that. Last year it was $11 billion over five years. This year it was $2.5 billion over four years. That is after taking out $26 billion. That is just not good enough. The responsibility stops right here and it stops with this budget.

The other fact concerning health care that we should be emphasizing is co-operation with the provinces. We need to co-operate with them to solve a problem that is a Canadian problem. The people in my constituency and in the Ontario constituencies I have visited are not interested in who does it, what is happening, or all of these facts and figures. They want to have a better health care system. They do not particularly care whether it is federal, provincial or whatever. They just know that there is something wrong.

We could go through all the problems, but I do not believe we need to do that. I think we can simply say that we must fix that system. How do we do it? We have to do it by co-operation with the provinces. What do we do to the provinces? We have our drive-by smear that occurs. We have the taunting and the constant attacks on the Government of Ontario. We have Mr. Romanow and even Mr. Tobin asking for things and the government treats them the same. One cannot even say it selects the people it picks on. This government bullies the provinces. It does not worry about co-operating with the provinces and, of course, that is why the health care system of this country continues to deteriorate.

Canadians want that fixed and they expected that in the budget. Certainly our health minister was the big loser at the budget table this year when one considers that grants and boondoggles got as much money as health care. That is a disgrace, Mr. Speaker, just as not touching that debt is a disgrace.

What about taxes? There was tampering with the tax system again, but it was not adequate and not what people really needed. We need to have a level playing field if we are going to compete. We have 85% of our trade with the U.S. We need a level playing field and that certainly has to be in the area of taxation. It was disappointing.

With respect to agriculture, what did we do for our farmers? We did nothing. We showed no interest in agriculture whatsoever in this budget.

Finally, in terms of Canadian influence around the world, the international perspective of the government, our position in the world, was probably at its peak in 1945. Mr. Pearson did a lot to maintain that, but where have we gone since then?

I am disappointed to say that in all the travelling I have done, I have seen a decline. I have seen our peacekeepers, great men and women, working hard in counties with 40 year old equipment. You have seen them, too, Mr. Speaker. What are we doing to our NATO and NORAD partners?

I was not happy with this budget.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the arguments of the hon. member for Red Deer. The alliance party has had a number of different names, but I think we could safely call it the party of hypocrisy. I do not know if it is a movement or a party. Someone suggested it is a movement, but I think it is a party.

There are many different flaws in the hon. member's argument. I would like to focus on just a couple of them, if I may, Mr. Speaker. First, I find it very hypocritical when the member stands up in the House and talks about the debt whereas in fact their proposition when they ran with their platform would have meant that the government would have been out of deficit two years later than what this government did, which would have meant of course that the debt would have increased even more quickly. I find it quite irrational for this member to get up in the House and make those comments.

Canadians must be confused with this issue about tax points. Let me explain if I might for the member opposite how it works. In 1977 the federal government vacated 13.5 percentage points of its personal income tax and 1 percentage point of its corporate income tax. In other words the government said “We are not going to charge citizens and corporate Canada as much federal income tax, so we invite you, the provinces, to move into that area. You charge citizens and corporations more tax”. Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? That is exactly what they did.

The argument that the federal government later increased taxes and the provinces did this and the provinces did that is totally irrelevant. When the federal government vacated that tax room, the provinces immediately filled it. Since 1977 the world has changed. There have been a lot of things happening up and down, back and forth.

When the member talks about expenditures, the level of expenditure for direct program delivery of the federal government is down $4 billion from 1993 while at the same time our transfers to the provinces have been totally restored. Surely that says something about the priorities of this government. Our direct program expenditure is down $4 billion and the transfers to provinces have been completely restored.

Therefore, I find the member's arguments spurious in the least. The members talks about the grants and contributions going up in this budget. I am wondering if he understands the fact that the grants and contributions in the year 2000 budget are composed of $900 million to the Canada Foundation for Innovation so that Canadians can be more innovative and have a more innovative economy. It also includes the research chairs to establish us as a pre-eminent research nation with our universities, our students and our professors. Those are just two. I could go on and on.

I wonder if the member could clarify his understanding of the debt and tax points because clearly he was muddled when he first started out. I wonder with these comments if perhaps he has absorbed that and he could rethink what he proposed before.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is just amazing after one has been here for a while to see someone with their head in the sand. Someone who believes his own propaganda is even more amazing. The member does not even have a questioning mind for some of that information and obviously cannot even get the name of our party correct. That has to be another slur on that member's mental ability.

The Liberal propaganda says yes, in 1977 they transferred the tax room. Then they immediately started to raise taxes and by 1986 all of that tax room was used up by the federal government. From then on there is not a dollar left in there.

The fact that the government continues to say that of the $81 billion that is spent on health care in this country, provincial and federal, it transfers $14.5 billion this year, that is not 33% as it claims. It would have been in 1977 but if it goes that far back in terms of its propaganda, it obviously needs some research assistance as well.

There is $4 billion less in spending. Is that not something when $43 billion is spent on interest payments? Is that not something to stand up in the House and crow about, that the government has actually cut spending by $4 billion when it is paying $43 billion in interest, getting nothing, no services for it and the government is proud of that?

As far as the research grants which were mentioned, we are in the bottom third of OECD countries when it comes to technology and health care. That is nothing to stand and brag about. We are losing half our graduate doctors. Of the 16 universities training doctors, the number of specialist courses has been cut on a yearly basis. That is something to talk about. Funding should be returned to those programs so that we can fix our health care system.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member indicated that Canada pension plan premiums were going up and would offset some of the amounts that were decreased with regard to EI premiums and taxes. He is quite right.

Would the member agree that historically we have had five workers for every one pensioner and that current pensioners are getting about $8 for every $1 they put in? Forward planning and the actuarial numbers show that there will only be three workers for every one pensioner.

Would he agree that it was necessary for the premiums to go up to sustain the plan? Those premiums do not go into the government general revenue but are over on the side. Would the member agree that the role played by the federal and provincial governments to sustain the Canada pension plan for all Canadians was the right thing to do?

The member said that they were not in favour of a two tier health care system. He was emphatic, very emphatic. He is nodding his head. This is something they could not possibly tolerate, at all. He is still nodding his head.

Given that fact, could the member for Red Deer explain to the House and to all Canadians why they have not drummed the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca out of their party? He is currently running for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance on a platform of establishing a two tier health care system, one for the rich and one for everybody else.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first I will deal with the CPP. That plan is flawed. It was first introduced in 1966. Two years later the people who built the plan said that it would not work. From there on, governments ignored that advice and continued to build up the debt and the liability on that plan.

How do we fix that plan? We would have to charge, as most actuaries say, somewhere around 15% to fix it. If we start charging 15%, obviously young workers will be on the picket lines. What can we do about it?

I did an interesting project. I went to Santiago, Chile, which has had a program for 26 years. I went door to door. I went to the poor communities. I went to the middle class communities. I went to the wealthy communities. I asked them to tell me about their plan. They came out their doors with a card showing the pension plan they invested in, plan A, plan B, and plan C. It is government run. It is compulsory. It is 10%. It is there. They can watch it. They buy their groceries at the stores in which they have shares. They buy their cars from companies in which they have shares. They are proud of it. It is sustainable. The money is there in the country to invest. They do not have any foreign debt because of it.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

You said scrap it.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

The member will not try anything new. He is not prepared to try anything new. Some members across have their heads in the sand.

The final point is that we are not Liberals. We are the Canadian Alliance Party. We believe in democracy. If somebody running for the leadership wants to talk about something, he or she has a right to do it. We do not throw people out like the party on the other side.

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate on the budget implementation act. I commend my colleague from Red Deer on his response to that ridiculous question from the Liberal member opposite. He pointed out that the Canada pension plan is flawed.

One of the reasons I got involved in politics was that I resented the Liberal way of mortgaging the present on the future, making future generations pay for its excesses in the present. That is irresponsible and morally corrupt. On behalf of my children and all other children in Canada, I got involved in politics so that we could stop that type of destructive, irresponsible behaviour by the government.

There are three parts of the budget implementation act I would like to specifically address. One is the portion of the act that amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to implement a $2.5 billion increase in the Canada health and social transfer over four years.

The fact of the matter is that transfers from the federal government to the provinces were $18.5 billion per year when the Liberals came to power in 1993. They were reduced to $11.5 billion and now they have been increased to somewhere in the neighbourhood of $14 billion, still about $4.5 billion a year short of the funding that was in place six and a half years ago.

It is worthwhile to note that if we add up the cost to the health care system over the years of Liberal government there has actually been a shortfall or deficiency of $25 billion compared to the funding levels we had in 1993. That does not even account for inflation or population growth.

Health care has been terribly underfunded by the government in favour of spending the money on wasteful government programs and not in favour of tax cuts. The billion dollar boondoggle in the human resources department, the misappropriation or misallocation of grant money, is a good illustration of irresponsible behaviour and skewed priorities where the Liberals refuse to fund social programs that Canadians care about, such as our health care system, in favour of handing money to their political friends. That is tax money, I might add, paid by hard working Canadian families.

I would also like to address the amendment to the Excise Tax Act to allow the Minister of National Revenue to obtain judicial authorization to immediately assess and take action to collect from a person GST-HST deemed remittable by the minister. Suffice to say, I am opposed to that because it broadens the already coercive tax power of the government by granting even further powers to the Minister of National Revenue. When the Canadian Alliance forms the government we will be looking at measures to protect taxpayers and at having fairer methods of assessment and collection instead of a heavy handed, uncaring and unfeeling Liberal minister.

The Income Tax Act will be amended as of January 1 of this year to reinstate full indexation of the tax code. That is a move we have been urging the government to take ever since it took power in 1993 because of the insidious, sneaky way our taxes were going up year by year as a result of bracket creep. Tax brackets and personal deductions were not indexed to inflation.

Although the government has finally corrected this and finally listened to us after six years, it did not do so in any retroactive fashion. In order to reintroduce indexation it should have calculated the loss to taxpayers over the years by the fact that there was no indexation and then implement provisions whereby taxpayers would be able to receive the benefit of that.

There are numerous parts of the budget which I want to address, but in consideration of some of the debate which took place earlier in the day I will start by covering a brief history to where we are now.

I am referring in particular to a speech made by a Progressive Conservative member. It might have been the House leader. He was trying to justify the massive increase in our national debt that occurred during the Mulroney government, the nine year reign of error by the Conservatives. He was addressing the deficit which grew to enormous levels under their leadership.

When the Conservatives came to power in 1984 the national debt stood somewhere around the $200 billion mark. It was increasing as a result of deficit budgets by the previous Liberal government. The Tories at that time were in a unique position to reverse that trend and bring responsible fiscal management to government. They could have eliminated the deficit very quickly and very easily and began paying down the $200 billion debt. Instead, they embarked on the largest expansion of government in the history of our country.

Over a nine year period they increased taxes 71 times, but government spending far outpaced their tax increases to the point that annual deficits, by the time they left power nine years later, were over $40 billion a year. They added $300 billion to our national debt, more than doubling it. The fact that party is now on the brink of elimination is fitting, considering the fiscal mess it left our country in.

At this point I will discuss the legislative agenda of the Liberal government. The budget implementation act is full of flaws which we are illustrating for the benefit of the House. I want to put that in the context of the legislative agenda of the government. Not only is the budget deficient in many ways, but instead of addressing the areas of concern the government is on a very hollow agenda which lacks vision and is irresponsible.

I am referring to the fact that two days ago we debated in the House an act to extend marital benefits to gay couples. We have a $600 billion national debt. We have unreasonable levels of taxation. Yet the government is preoccupied with redefining marriage.

We have pressured the government for the last six years to reform the Young Offenders Act, to introduce a victims bill of rights into our criminal justice system and to address the problems in our prisons and the problems with parole. Many reforms are needed to the justice system and there was no response from the government.

Another illustration of its lack of vision and lack of responsibility is the child pornography issue. The government refuses to act. Last June the official opposition put forward a supply day motion on that topic urging the government to intervene, invoke the notwithstanding clause and enforce the law which made child pornography illegal, but it refused to do so.

The HRDC billion dollar boondoggle is very telling. We have a taxation system that is in dire need of repair and reform. The government in the budget has increased funding to HRDC. We are going to see more grants, more patronage, more suspicious payoffs and transactions.

I will illustrate a few examples. It is my understanding that the president of the Liberal constituency association in the riding of the minister of Indian affairs received a grant of about $150,000, which actually exceeded the legal limit of grants under the program from which he received it. Not only was there a patronage payoff for his political activity on behalf of the Liberal Party, but under the grant program that it used to administer the patronage payoff the law was even broken with respect to that.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With due respect, I believe that an allegation of some payoff in any form attributed to a minister is an inappropriate allegation for this place and perhaps you could rule it not parliamentary.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The Chair is more concerned that the hon. member concluded by saying that it appeared that the law had been broken. I am sure that he would not want to suggest that any member of the House had broken the law, unless he chooses to take the appropriate steps, which of course have serious consequences. I know he would not want to say that and I hope he would retract those words and continue with his remarks.

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify that. What I was referring to was the fact that the guidelines for that grant program were not adhered to. That is what I meant.

It is rather ironic that the member for Mississauga South would raise this point of order with you, Mr. Speaker, given the fact that he is remarkably silent when it comes to advocating and demonstrating any support for families, despite the fact that he pretends to be an advocate of family values. However, when the measure of that is put to the test, he fails repeatedly. I am referring to the fact that he continues to support the Liberal agenda, the anti-family agenda of overtaxing families, of unfair taxation, of refusing to defend the definition of marriage, and the list goes on.

One area of concern has to do with employment insurance premiums. They are about 18% in excess of the break-even point of the EI fund. The government is taking this excess money, which is in the neighbourhood of $7 billion a year, diverting it to the consolidated revenue fund and spending it on HRDC grants and other scandalous programs.

This is very offensive to hard-working Canadians who pay these employment insurance premiums for the purpose of receiving benefits if they become unemployed. The government is violating the intent and the spirit of the employment insurance program.

Equally important, I would like to point to an issue that really needs to be addressed. Not only is the overpayment unfair in that respect, but municipalities are public employers and, as such, municipalities across Canada pay EI premiums, as well as their workers. All of that money comes from property taxes.

The purpose of property taxes is supposed to be to provide services to properties and projects in the local municipalities. However, by virtue of the fact that there is an overpayment of EI premiums, in effect what is happening is that the property taxes being paid to local municipalities to provide services to those communities are being funnelled into the consolidated revenue fund of the federal government. Property taxes are ending up being spent to support aerospace companies in Montreal, instead of the communities for which they were intended and where they belong.

That is a good illustration of why the EI overpayment is unfair. It is an excessive tax on workers and employers. When the Canadian Alliance forms the government we will immediately lower EI premiums to the break-even point and stop that unfair taxation on property owners and hard-working Canadians.

The Liberal government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on gun registration. That has to be the absolute height of stupidity, making law-abiding, responsible firearms owners register their firearms. What possible benefit do taxpayers get for this massive expenditure of money? Need I remind the government that criminals do not register their guns? Whether a gun is registered will not determine whether it was used in a crime. In fact, it places responsible firearms owners at the risk of potentially being implicated if their firearms are stolen and used in the perpetration of a crime.

The relevance of this is that taxpayers are being forced to shell out very sizeable amounts of money. I think that at last count the cost of the gun registration program was over $300 million, but I stand to be corrected.

[An hon. member]

It was $316 million.

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

It was $316 million, and it is projected to exceed $1 billion. Just imagine the benefits taxpayers could reap if that money was left in their own pockets.

It is very insulting for hard-working Canadian families to pay such high levels of tax and then to see that type of waste.

I represent a riding in Saskatchewan. Last Friday the Prime Minister appointed a person from Saskatchewan to the Senate because there was a Senate vacancy. The Senate is another example of waste and patronage. I have been advocating an elected Senate for several years, as has our party since its beginning. The Prime Minister also appointed someone from Alberta that same day. I would like to point out to the House that not only is the Senate in its current form useless and a waste of money, but when the Prime Minister appoints senators—

[The Deputy Speaker]

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member, but I know that he has read the rules of the House repeatedly and he knows that it is wrong to speak disrespectfully of the other place. I would ask him to be very careful in his choice of adjectives. “Unelected”, of course, is fair game, but I think he wants to be careful about the words he just used that might have been disrespectful of the other place. I know he would not want to be.

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In fact, we could have great respect for the Senate if it was elected and if we had an equal number of senators from each province, which would balance the problems we have in the country. Representation by population with regional concerns could very effectively be addressed and balanced by having an efficiently functioning Senate, with equal numbers from each province elected and, therefore, democratically chosen by the people, as opposed to being appointed, which only adds to that feeling of western alienation when an Ottawa-based Prime Minister appoints someone to represent us.

I know the people of Alberta feel the same way. They have a senatorial election act and they have elected two senators in waiting. They are asking the Prime Minister to respect their democratically chosen people, but the Prime Minister continues to excite western alienation feelings by ignoring the expressed will of the Alberta people and appointing his own people to the Senate.

I have been urging the Premier of Saskatchewan to enact a similar act so that we could elect our senators. We could have senators elect, or senators in waiting, so that the next time there is a vacancy we could plead with the Prime Minister to appoint our choice for Senate representation. I hope that the Premier of Saskatchewan will eventually come around to my way of thinking.

I also want to point out that there is an agriculture crisis on the prairies. It is a very severe situation, due to factors for which the government is responsible, such as an inefficient grain transportation system. The Canadian Wheat Board is an Ottawa controlled marketing system for our grain in the west.

Liberal priorities are skewed. Instead of lowering taxes for farmers and helping them through this crisis, instead of reforming our grain marketing and transportation systems and bringing forward responsible legislation, the government brought forward this budget which will continue to gouge Canadians, making us continue to pay excessive levels of taxation, and our money will be wasted.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the House, and probably all Canadians, would take note that the member was admonished at least twice during his speech for inappropriate, unparliamentary remarks.

In fact, there were many others, but I took personal offence to his comment about me and my commitment to the family, to children, and to the institution of marriage.

When I became a member of parliament I made a commitment as a private member to do some things which I felt very strongly about. I would like to list a few for the member's edification.

The first bill I introduced was Bill C-237, which had to do with income splitting between spouses, so that one spouse could stay at home to care for pre-school children.

Then I introduced the conversion of the child care expense deduction to a credit so that there would be fairness and equity in terms of the tax benefit to the family.

Since I became a member of parliament I have written five books. I wrote a book called Divorce: The Bold Facts . I wrote a book called Strong Families Make a Strong Country . I wrote a book called Tragic Tolerance of Domestic Violence . I wrote a book called The Child Poverty Solution . I have just issued, last month, a book called Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: The Real Brain Drain .

If the member would like to see those, he could look them up on my website. They are all available on paulszabo.com.

If the member wants to know about my commitment to the definition of marriage as being the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, he should check the transcript of the justice committee when the amendment from the justice minister came forward. He would see that there was one person who spoke up to make sure that the motion was relevant and acceptable to the chair of the committee. That person was me. I spoke on behalf of the government to make sure that the motion was there and that the definition of marriage was incorporated into that statute of Canada.

He could look at Motion No. 30, which deals with the caregiver benefit for those who provide care in the home for pre-school children, the chronically ill, the aged or the disabled. It is my motion. It passed in this place by a vote of 163 to 29. In the following election it was in the platform of this party. In fact, it is in the Income Tax Act now. There are caregiver benefits for those who provide care for an aged parent.

He could look at the increases in the child tax benefit. If he looked at the report called “Investing in Children and Valuing our Caregivers”, he would see that recommendation and he would see that I was the author of that report.

If he were to look at Bill C-204, he would see a bill on extending parental leave to a full year—

[Maurice Vellacott, Reform, Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am poised with bated breath waiting for the question. I would expect that we would get to the relevance of the long diatribe and get to a question with respect to the member opposite.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It is questions and comments. The hon. member for Mississauga South indicated at the outset that he was provoked, so I guess we are getting the result of the provocation in spades.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude with Bill C-204, a private member's bill. The member knows how difficult it is to get private member's bills acted upon in this place.

He will also know that in the budget that we are debating here today there is a provision to extend parental leave under the EI plan to a full year, and that is my bill. So that the member will know very clearly now and for all time, my commitment to the family is clear. I hope that he restrains himself in the future from ever casting aspersions on me or any other member in this place when he does not know what he is talking about.

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the first thing the hon. member said when he got up to make his comments was that he felt I had said something inappropriate. As you know, Mr. Speaker, while I was speaking, that member made a bodily gesture to me that was very inappropriate and which you saw. I believe that is somewhat hypocritical of him to say that. He talks a mean talk.

I support family values. He mentioned some book he had written on income splitting but guess what, he voted for the government budget. He supports the government which does not allow that. Although he says he opposes the tax discrimination against families, he supports it. How does he justify the fact that he voted as he did on Tuesday night to change the definition of marriage?

He also mentioned a book that he said was a child poverty solution.