Mr. Speaker, thank you again for the opportunity to speak on Bill C-32, the budget implementation act.
At first glance the bill tries to pass itself off as legislation that will bring about tax relief and the elimination of bracket creep. The bill attempts to appear to be beneficial to our health care and our education systems. It has the appearance that there is a claim that there will be increases to the transfer payments to the provinces. The government would like us to believe that the bill will make major breakthroughs for families with the national child benefit.
When I actually go through the bill and really analyse this, I can summarize the bill or the budget in two words. This budget is about tinkering and tokenism and nothing more.
Canadians are getting less. Polls across this country indicate that nine out of ten Canadians want substantive tax relief. We have seen the Liberals take, take, take since 1993 when they formed government. We have seen our disposable income continually fall. We have become worse off. They take a dollar and they claim they will give us back a dime, and I emphasize the word claim as I am not convinced that that will happen, and we are supposed to thank them.
There is something desperately wrong with this. This all comes back to the Minister of Finance. Unfortunately, he does not understand that this is not his money. This money belongs to the people of Canada. Until we change this institution, until we change how we spend taxpayers' money and until we bring back accountability, this country will be worse off.
I chatted with my colleague, the member for St. Albert. He introduced Bill C-477, which I found very fascinating. There is something that is quite startling in that bill. The title alone, an act to provide for evaluations of statutory programs, really goes to the heart of what I am talking about.
I want to read one little section of what he is trying to do. Again, the member for St. Albert tabled four criteria this morning. This bill is about the evaluation of government programs and it is basically to replace a sunset clause.
One, what are the public policy objectives that the program is designed to achieve; two, its effectiveness in meeting its objectives; three, the efficiency by which it is delivered; and four, whether its purpose could be better fulfilled by different means.
I would say that those are four very important fundamental principles we should be thinking about every time this institution spends taxpayer dollars, but that has not happened. Time and again we see that there is no accountability. These programs create a life of their own. They grow and completely lose their objectives.
I am not suggesting that we do not need to look at investing in this country but, as we have seen in the billion dollar boondoggle in the HRDC program, the job creation funds and many more, these programs often fail every single one of these tests. This comes back to accountability and whether taxpayers are getting value for their money. The member for St. Albert pointed something out to me that really struck me. He said that we need to show accountability with every single dollar going out of this institution. Unfortunately, that is not happening.
Michael Mendelson, an economist from the Caledon Institute, said “Fiscal doom does not await us if we decide to tax substantively less than Ottawa is likely to do—even in this slower economy, reduced taxes would turn that around”.
Sherry Cooper, from Nesbitt Burns Inc., said “It is precisely because of economic uncertainty that tax relief to support businesses and consumers is needed now. The Canadian tax burden today is excessive, dramatically reducing our economic well-being. Furthermore, substantive tax cuts will not jeopardize the hard-won gains on the fiscal front”.
The guy who is holding the purse strings is the Minister of Finance. We have to start holding him personally accountable for a lot of these decisions, such as on health care.
I will give an example from my riding. In the province of British Columbia we have two level two intensive care units for children in all of B.C. One is in Vancouver and the other one is in Victoria. They have been there for a long time and have saved hundreds of children's lives. One of those institutions is about to be closed. I spoke to the hospital administrator, the CEO of the Victoria Regional Health Board. He looked at whether they could be more efficient or whether they could do a better job by centralizing but, he said “I have to acknowledge that this whole debate started for one reason: money. There is not enough money. The pie is not big enough. It gets smaller and smaller. We have to shut it down”. This will have a dramatic effect on how we deliver health care on Vancouver Island. It is wrong.
The guy who is cutting the pie and handing it out, but not back to the taxpayers, is the Minister of Finance. We often hear that it is the entire government but it is the Minister of Finance who has the most influence on what is happening. It really perturbs me that they take a dollar, give us back a dime and we are supposed to thank them. Health care in this country is in a crisis.
Let us look at some specific things that this budget does or does not do. It talks about bracket creep. Bracket creep is something that has already put one million low income workers on the tax rolls and pushed another 2.5 million taxpayers into higher tax brackets. Between 1986 and 1999 bracket creep created an extra $10 billion in taxes.
I applaud the government for eliminating bracket creep. Let us call a spade a spade. It eliminated bracket creep, which was one of the most significant things in the budget, but it is calling it tax relief. It is absolutely amazing. It cancels future tax increases and that is supposed to be tax relief. It is beyond comprehension. I do not know if we need to send members back to school to take economics 101 or send them to an economist. However, to cancel tax increases for future years and then say that they are giving us tax relief is wrong.
We have to put a solution on the table. I am extremely proud of what the Canadian Alliance has put out there. The member for Medicine Hat has worked extensively on what we refer to as solution 17, which is a single tax rate of 17% for everyone. What that will do is create an environment where the private sector will help the economy flourish and create meaningful, long-lasting, permanent jobs where people's lives will become better.
While speaking to the member for St. Albert this morning, we discussed his private member's bill that would bring back accountability to how we spend money. An example that comes to mind is the TAGS program. The government spent almost $2.8 billion paying fishermen to sit at home and wait for the fish to return. We all agreed that something needed to be done for these people but the people were worse off after the program ended than they were when it began. It did not help them. All the money was for naught. We gave them no hope and no future. They were extremely frustrated five years later.
We do have situations that happen at various times for different reasons and we need to address them as a government. Unfortunately, the strategies we have seen coming from the government have not helped Canadians. They have put them in a much worse situation. Our health care system is crumbling before our eyes. People are dying while on waiting lists. There is less money in our health care and in the transfer payments today than when this government took office in 1993. That is an absolute disgrace.
Let us look at the billion dollar boondoggle. The government will of course say that it was not a billion dollars. We know there was no paperwork for 15% of the applicants. No one could even tell us if the people had applied. There were numerous other grants where people had asked for $60,000 and received $100,000 and told to keep the change. I know how long any experienced private business person would stay in business if he or she operated in that manner. It is absolutely mind-boggling that the government actually tries to defend these actions. It takes the government so long to react on anything that when it does, one wonders just what will happen.
Coming back to the billion dollar boondoggle, how did the government respond to that situation? The budget was tabled in the House in February. How did the government respond? It responded by giving more money to grants and contributions this year. In this year's budget alone it increased grants and contributions to $1.5 billion. I do not know the exact number but I think it gave $200 million or $300 million to HRDC alone.
What did health care get after years and years of cuts? It received $1 billion. Our national health care is very sacred. It is the cornerstone on which we should be focusing but the government is dropping the ball and doing nothing.
The Canadian Alliance has a better plan. Solution 17 is a single tax rate that will put money back into the hands of taxpayers and families.
Let me tell the House about the government's six point plan. I do not have it in front of me so I will try to do this from memory. I actually had a copy of the previous six point plan before the government had its first six point plan.
The first point is, there is no plan. The second rule in the six point plan is, if there are any rules, do not follow the rules. The third rule is, locate Shawinigan on the map, memorize it and send lots of money.