Debates of April 13th, 2000

Budget Implementation Act, 2000

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

We do not want to get carried away here. We can refer to the minister by the minister's riding or the minister's responsibility. We just cannot use the name. So feel free. The hon. member for Halifax West.

[Gordon Earle, NDP, Halifax West, NS]

In any event, it took this individual one year to answer a letter. I know we all sometimes have problems getting back on time with our correspondence. However, the key is this. When people are looking to governments and their leaders, they want to feel that there is some sense of responsibility on these issues because these issues are very crucial to them.

These are the kinds of comments that are coming forward. I raise these in good faith to give an understanding as to why people are concerned about the budget and why they are concerned about the government.

I am not sure how much time I have left, but I want to bring this to a conclusion on a positive note. I think it is very important for each and every one of us in the House to examine very closely the budget from the point of view, as I said before, as to what it says in terms of priorities for people, priorities for Canadians. What are we saying to the public about the direction in which we want the country to go? We have to get past the bottom line being just the dollar. By that I do not mean that the dollar is not important. Of course it is important. However, there is much more importance in having a sense of decency about the way we conduct our business, about having a sense of obligation and responsibility to seniors, students, the ill and those who are afflicted.

There is much more to the budget than just the dollars themselves. We notice that the budget did not really touch upon many issues that would affect aboriginal people, our first citizens of this country. These kinds of things determine what attitude we have about our country, about where we are as a nation.

In conclusion, I would say that we certainly were disappointed with the budget. We hope that the comments of Canadians, such as the comments that I read earlier, will be taken to heart and the government will look at those things in a meaningful way and try to do what is best for our country.

[Dale Johnston, Reform, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member from Nova Scotia talk about the inadequacies of the Canada pension plan as far as disability pensions are concerned. The member will know that the government has arranged for the Canada pension plan premiums to be raised to 9.9% of earnings and that will take place over the next two or three years. Along with that increase in the premium rate, we are seeing a decline in the number of people in the workforce and an increase in the number of people who are retired. Therefore, we have more and more people retiring and fewer and fewer people actually paying the premiums.

I wonder if the member would enlighten us as to how he sees curing that problem. More and more people are retiring and going on disability on the Canada pension plan, fewer and fewer people are paying into it and the rates are increasing and increasing. Where does he see the rates stopping?

[Gordon Earle, NDP, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I am really qualified to say where I think the rates should stop.

I think the hon. member has raised a valid point with respect to the increase in premiums and so forth because far too often what is happening is that the government is constantly increasing premiums and taking more money from people when in reality what we need to do is readjust our priorities so that the money that is there can be utilized in a more positive way to alleviate some of the difficulties that people who must go on disability encounter.

When we look, for example, at what happened with the EI premiums and a program designed to help the unemployed, the government took that money and threw it into its pot so that it could come up with a surplus.

When we look at superannuation, the money is taken there and put into a pot so the government can claim a surplus. When we look at the pay equity struggle that workers had for years and years and years, again, it comes back to priorities. If the government will reorganize its priorities and think in terms of people, then that issue that the member raised will come to a natural resolution.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

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.

[Some hon. members]

That is not in the plan.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

A member has said that is not in the plan. Of course that is not in the plan and is not the fact but that is exactly what happened and how it ended up.

Let me read from page 46 of the Minister of Finance's budget plan 2000 dated February 28, 2000. By the minister's own numbers, it says that by the end of this year we will have a deficit. If the members on the other side want to follow along, they should open the budget at page 46. Chart 3.1, Federal Government Budgetary Balance. Throughout the 1980s and up until 1997 we see that we have gone up to about a $40 billion deficit. We then have a little spike up over the line. Guess what happens at the end of this year? It goes back to below zero. The government will spend more money than it will take in.

Let me give the Minister of Finance's definition of what this chart means. It is called “Financial Requirements/Surplus”. It states:

Another important measure of the Government's finances is the financial requirements/surplus—the difference between cash coming into the Government and cash payments made for programs and public debt charges during the year.

Why is the government spending more money than it is taking in? It is because we are one year before an election. Interestingly enough—and I found this quite fascinating because this chart goes back to 1961—if we look at the year before every federal election we can see that government spending goes through the roof. The election machine kicks in, the goodies come out and it is time to buy more votes. What do members think the billion dollar boondoggle was all about?

The Prime Minister's riding received more money than two or three prairie provinces combined, money that was completely unaccounted for. The Prime Minister announced grants before there was even any paperwork and before the department even knew about it. People were backpedaling so fast to make it happen it was not even funny. That is is so wrong. It is a culture that has permeated this institution that we have to change. We have to bring back accountability and respect.

I would ask hon. members to get a copy of Bill C-477, which the member for St. Albert tabled this morning. He wants to bring back an evaluation of statutory programs so that Canadian taxpayers will get some value for their money. He wants to make sure that the programs will do what they were intended to do. Imagine that, somebody is actually suggesting we make sure that programs are effective, that they meet the stated goals and that they are run in an efficient manner and, if not, that they are run in a better way.

The government is not interested in anything like that. It will not let something like that see the light of day. It will shovel the money out the back door faster than any of us could. It is incredible. We see it day after day.

Who is holding the chequebook? It is none other than the Minister of Finance. We saw the sort of unofficial leadership race on that side of the House and we heard people talking about the Minister of Finance. This is the man who has been in that position since 1993. He is the guy who has slashed and burned health care, who has not put money in. He is the man who cut back transfer payments to the provinces so much that officials are cutting one of two intensive care units in Victoria where I am from. Children's lives will be put at risk. People will die.

[Hec Clouthier, Liberal, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

That is the province.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

No, that is factual. It will be very tragic. They will have to be airlifted to Vancouver. It is a level two intensive care unit for children. It is a very high level of care that has been there for some 15 years and all of a sudden it is being shut down.

The CEO of the Victoria health board in his own words said that the debate started because they do not have enough money. It is wrong. It is time that the government did something about it.

We could go on and on but let us stick to the facts. Let us talk about the standard of living since the government came in. We live in a great country but we cannot take it for granted. The standard of living since the government came to power has dropped. The savings of Canadians have dropped. Young families are struggling. Health care is in an absolute, complete crisis. There is no accountability of how money is spent. We see such things as the billion dollar boondoggle going on. It is a disgrace. What is the government's six point plan? It is to give it more money next year and give health care less. That is wrong.

In my riding migrants were the big issue. The government is more concerned about building more beds at provincial jail institutions than it is for health care. I hope the members on the other side have taken note. It is time to bring back accountability to this institution and bring back respect. It is long overdue.

[Philip Mayfield, Reform, Cariboo—Chilcotin, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate and thank my colleague for bringing to light the information in his speech.

It was interesting as I listened to him to reflect on some of the promises the finance minister has made. He will increase federal spending by something over $86 billion over the next five years. It is amazing he would put that expense on Canadians. It is almost $3,000 per Canadian, to increase spending to that level. At the same time I hear my colleague talking about the tragedy in Victoria with the closing of the children's intensive care unit.

How would my colleague rectify this situation? It is impossible to imagine that expenditures can be raised and still cut services at the same time and at the level that the Liberals are doing it. I ask my colleague to describe a situation which he sees would not only improve the situation for Canadians but would provide the services they need as well.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has touched upon the very important point about the massive increase in government spending. If the government put more money into health care, that is one area which would get my support. However, where is the $86 billion increase in spending going?

As we have seen, the biggest beneficiaries are programs such as grants and contributions. Some of the grants are absolutely mind-boggling. They are almost insulting to repeat. It is important that we remind Canadians how the money is being spent.

Under Canadian heritage, grants have gone out for hanging dead rabbits in trees, for setting up a call centre for prostitution or phone sex or something like that as an art exhibit in Paris. They are absolutely horrific. I cannot believe the government would allow one thin dime of taxpayers' money to go to those. Not only did it send it, it supported it. It defends those types of programs.

The member made a very important point. There was an $86 billion spending increase. It is time to put money back into the pockets of Canadians for them to spend. It would help stimulate the economy and they would spend the money a lot better.

There are some things we need to spend money on such as health care. We need to debate how to deliver health care in this country. Our national health care needs to become stronger. Whether Canadians get sick in St. John's or they have a heart attack in Winnipeg or Vancouver, they want to know that they will be treated without having to wait. Unfortunately that is not where the money is going.

I was asked what could help turn the situation around and bring back some credibility and respect. Our solution 17 would see a single tax rate of 17%. It would increase the basic exemption for people to $10,000. It would not discriminate against people whether they were working or not and both people in the household could get that. That would take one million Canadians off the tax roll. People with lower incomes would be the biggest beneficiaries. A family of four would have to earn in the neighbourhood of $26,000 before paying one dime in tax. There are people in the country right now who are below the poverty line and who pay taxes. That is wrong.

Where does the money go? It goes to political patronage and to the cronies of the people over there. That is so frustrating to me. There is example after example. It goes out one door and comes in another door called the Liberal Party of Canada. There are lots of examples. It is corrupt and it is wrong. It is time we changed that and brought back respect to this institution. I am not going to quit until we do.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member knows that I am from a rural area in southern Saskatchewan. I would like to inform the hon. member that I asked for and received some documents from the Farm Credit Corporation about the number of farm closures that would take place because of the situation that had developed because of flooding and the poor commodity prices.

Had the government seen fit to take just a small portion of some of the expenditures the member just mentioned, we could have left many of those young families, if not all of them, on the farm with the hope of survival. At least we would have done something for them and their families. I would like him to comment on that.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised an excellent point. We have seen the farm crisis. I brought that up when we talked about the TAGS program for the fisher people in Atlantic Canada.

We need to help these people but we need stated objectives. We want to make sure that when we help people that the money we invest in these programs actually reaches them. Unfortunately, it goes down sinkholes and to government patronage programs. Look at the TAGS program in Atlantic Canada; $2.8 billion later and those people are worse off when the program was shut down than they were when it started.

On this side of the House we in the Canadian Alliance believe there are situations where we are going to invest and help people. We are going to have stated objectives. That is what private member's Bill C-477 by the member for St. Albert proposes: what is our objective, is it going to be effective, is it being delivered efficiently and can we do it better?

That is what this is all about. For the people that need it in circumstances like the farm crisis, yes we will invest in these programs. That money will reach the people. It will not get gobbled up in a bureaucracy. It will not get gobbled up in administration. We will evaluate it and make sure that it is doing what it is supposed to be doing.

We have heard the government talk about all the money it is giving to the farm crisis over and over again. Many of my colleagues are from that part of the country and they have told me time and time again that it is not reaching anyone. These programs are delivered inefficiently and ineffectively. That goes to the core of the problem of the government.

I started off my speech by saying that this is a budget of tinkering and tokenism. The government takes a dollar, gives us back a dime and we are supposed to thank it.

The members in the Canadian Alliance are united more than ever right now about making a difference in the country. They are not going to stop until they do. It is time we brought change to this institution, accountability and credibility. We are going to fight for this to the bitter end and we are not going to give up.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-32, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget that was tabled in the House on February 28, 2000.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to split my time with my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester. He will be taking half of the speaking time.

It is unfortunate there was not more substance in Bill C-32 with more need to implement more of the provisions that should have been identified in the budget that was tabled in the House on February 28. With budgets, government and governance, the Canadian public is looking for something that is not terribly out of the ordinary and it is not something that is terribly difficult to understand. It seems the government has not had the opportunity to talk to the people in places where they have a tendency to be, the hockey games, the coffee shops in our constituencies.

If we asked the small business owners and other people working in those businesses, it is not difficult to understand what Canadians want. They simply want to have and to hold a job, to earn a living, to educate their children, to buy a house, to have some luxuries, an automobile, and certainly food on their table. They want to be able to earn dollars and to keep and control the dollars they earn.

Unfortunately the budget does not speak to that. The budget still says that if you are a Canadian and you work and you earn money, then the government is going to take that money away from you, because the government knows full well what is better for you as a Canadian citizen and how those dollars should be expended and spent on your behalf. The budget says please do not think that you as a thinking Canadian who can raise that family, keep that job and earn that dollar, know better how to spend those dollars. The government does not believe Canadians are capable of doing that. That philosophy is embraced in the budget that was tabled in the House on February 28. I will speak to that in certain areas.

Also a budget is not simply a financial blueprint; it is a blueprint for the way our society and our country is to grow. It is called vision. I know that word is sometimes overused but certainly it has not gotten through to the members on the government side of the House. They have absolutely no vision. It was mentioned earlier by the hon. member who just spoke that there was a tinkering in the way they do business. It is true.

I use the term caretaker government. It is a caretaker government with a caretaker prime minister who is simply waiting out his days. He is saying that we should do business the way we have always done business, not rock the boat or do anything new and innovative.

However we live in a new and innovative society. We do not live in the 1950s any longer like perhaps the Canadian Alliance would like us to do. We live in a world now which demands that we compete in a globalized world. It demands that our children be educated to a level and standard that they can compete with other nations in the world, not just simply with provinces or the cities adjacent to them.

The government does not recognize that. It has no vision. It has no vision on education. It has no vision on agriculture. We have talked about that. The budget does not speak a word about agriculture. Agriculture, the food on our tables that we eat, is important to Canadian citizens. People who have families, who have jobs and want to educate their children like to put food on their tables, and that comes from agriculture.

The government has absolutely no understanding or idea where the agricultural sector of society is going. There is no vision. The government puts out false hopes, false statements and false programs. Yet the dollars do not get to where they are supposed to go. My constituents have a real feeling of depression because they do not know what kind of future they have.

Let us talk about the lack of vision in health care. The government stands in the House, pats itself on the back and says that it put $2.5 billion into health care in the last budget over four years. The $2.5 billion do not bring us back to a 1993-94 level of expenditure.

Two things are wrong with that. It is not simply the money. It is the vision with respect to health care. The government will not even sit down to work with the provinces, let alone listen to the way it could possibly change the system for the better. It is not prepared to do that because it has no vision and no understanding of where Canadians want to go with that aspect of their lives.

The government has no vision on transportation. Our country was built on transportation, by the rail links, by air and by road. The government does not even know where it is heading with transportation.

Let us talk about Bill C-32 specifically. I mentioned the lack of vision. The government has tried to deal with a couple of areas. One of them was the basic personal deduction. Canadians want to keep their money so they can spend it the best way they see fit. One way to do that is for the government to take less.

It is the Progressive Conservative position that we should have basic personal deductions of $12,000 per year. That is not much money in today's society but it would be a step in the right direction. However the government takes great pride in increasing it by about $100 so that under this government Canadian citizens are not given the right to spend their own money.

Let us talk about CHST. It is not simply a matter of the health dollars that are being transferred. As I said earlier, the health dollars are abysmal. The government should be held accountable for what it did to our health care system. The Prime Minister will be known in history as the man who destroyed our health care system. He did it almost single-handedly, although his backbenchers and his government gave him full rein to do so. They too will have to wear that in history.

What would we do with health care? We would do something that is really foreign to the government, co-operative federalism. It used to be that 50% of health care dollars were contributed by the federal government. That has been reduced. In fact there is a provincial government now that is suggesting it could be as low as 11 cents or 11% of health care dollars.

[Hec Clouthier, Liberal, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

That is wrong and the member knows it.

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

Mr. Speaker, they like to dispute that. Let us say that it is 25 cents on the dollar, which it is not, even with the tax points. Let us assume they can put that forward. I do not think Canadians are gullible enough to believe that, but they will try to put it forward and will try to get Canadians to believe something that is not in fact true.

There are three issues in health care. The first is that we have an aging population. The government does not seem to recognize it, because we are now back to 1993-94 levels of funding.

I have talked about the new global economy. We live in a globalized world. We have technology that we never considered possible. We have it but we cannot afford it because the government is not prepared to work with the provinces and is not prepared to work on the health care system to make it available to Canadians.

As I said, we have an aging population. There is also technology and inflation. We need money in the system but we also need to work with the provinces and we need co-operation. We will not get any of those with this government.

Bill C-32 also deals with employment insurance. Employment insurance is an insurance program for which Canadians pay a premium so that they are entitled to a benefit from the program when required. By law, the employment insurance program is a flow-through, break even program, an insurance program.

The Liberal government collects $18 billion a year in insurance premiums and pays out $12 billion a year in benefits. It pockets $6 billion of our money. Members of the government do it and say that they are wonderful. They pat themselves on the back because they can use the $6 billion to spend the way they would like to spend it, as has been done perhaps in Shawinigan and in some other mismanaged programs for which they are so famous.

I am sorry Bill C-32 does not contain more substance. Yes, we live in a great country, but Canadians must recognize that we have to protect our standard of living. We cannot protect our standard of living and our quality of life with the mismanagement of this government.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address one specific point. The member announced that the Progressive Conservative Party, as part of its platform, would like to increase a tax credit.

The member referred to it as the basic personal deduction. For the member's edification, it is a basic personal amount, a non-refundable tax credit at a rate of 17%. If we assume a 50% provincial tax rate of the federal tax rate, the equivalent in the pocket for a Canadian would be at a rate of about 25%. The $5,000 increase in the tax credit the member is proposing would generate $1,250 in the pocket of every Canadian taxpayer. That is federal and provincial.

The member will probably know that in 1997, the last year Revenue Canada reported on it, 14 million Canadian taxpayers filed income tax returns and actually paid income taxes. Therefore, if what the member is proposing were to be done, it would mean that 14 million taxpayers times $100 would generate $1.4 billion of cost.

What the member is proposing would cost the federal government $12 billion. This is not something to be taken lightly. The member also went on to speak about EI and $6 billion. Now we are up to $18 billion. I could deal with some of the other points, but in a very few moments the hon. member had summarily eliminated about $20 billion of revenue each and every year to the federal treasury to support programs and services.

My question is simple. I understand clearly what the member would like to cut in terms of the revenue base the government uses to support health care and all other supports it provides to Canadians. If he is to cut $20 billion-plus a year out of the federal treasury, what is he prepared to cut each and every year to ensure that we do not go back into the deficit that his party put us into to start off this mess?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to touch on that last comment. The reason we are in this mess is because of a government led by a prime minister by the name of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. That is where this mess started with respect to social expenditures which, by the way, were funded out of my son's future and my grandson's future. Let us get that straight right now. The whole mess we are in right now is because of a Liberal government and Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

If we went to $12,000 on the basic personal exemption, we would be—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. It is very difficult for the Chair to hear the hon. member for Brandon—Souris who has the floor.

[An hon. member]

We do not want to hear him.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The Chair wants to hear him and to make sure that the debate is conducted fairly so that all hon. members can be heard. I know that members will want to hear the answer the hon. member for Brandon—Souris is giving to the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, to the lack of substance in the question from the hon. member for Mississauga South, based on a basic personal exemption of $12,000 as has been suggested, 2.5 million Canadians would be removed from the tax rolls. It is about $1,200 annually, which works out to about $2.5 billion.

The government's philosophy is that it can do it better than individual Canadians. We are saying that individual Canadians should be the masters of their own destiny. The money should be given back to them. Something else the government cannot get through its head is that when money is given back to Canadians it generates the economy. It generates more dollars that can then be collected by the tax creatures on that side of the House.

There are anywhere from $6 billion to $10 billion a year, but we cannot get a real handle on the numbers because the finance minister and the government will not tell us what is the real surplus. The reason they do not want to tell us the real number is that they hide it and squirrel it away so that they can spend in places where it should not be spent. Those dollars should be invested back into the pockets of Canadians.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is pleasure to speak to Bill C-32. I want to focus my remarks on the transportation components of the bill and on how it will impact Nova Scotia. After reviewing certain aspects and terms of the bill and the budget, my conclusion is the bill is tokenism. It is inconsistency and it is backfilling.

When the finance minister completed his budget presentation, it is interesting that he conducted a poll to find out what people thought of it. He found that the majority of Canadians felt that he did not put enough money into health care, the number one issue on everyone's mind. He did not have to take that poll. All he had to do was to ask me. I did the same thing two years ago in my own riding, and the number one issue was health care by a long margin. Education was second. I was surprised that the finance minister did not have that information and had to take a poll even after he presented his budget.

In the budget he promised $2.5 billion over five years for health care, education and infrastructure. The provinces have been saying very loudly and consistently in unison that they need $6 billion a year to maintain the system as it is. The government has let the number one issue for Canadians, health care, deteriorate to such an extent that it is hard to get a doctor in a lot of places. It is hard to get nursing care. It is hard to get into hospital. It is hard to get a hospital bed. In return the finance minister brings this token amount of money, and it is a token amount of money, to the provinces each year. In the case of Nova Scotia, it amounts to about $15 million or $20 million a year for extra money for health care, and that is truly a token. One hospital in our province is projected to cost approximately $40 million or $50 million. That is one hospital. This budget will give $15 million to $20 million a year to the entire province. It is truly a token.

Part of the infrastructure in the bill that the Liberals have touted so much is for highway work. I will read what the transportation minister in Nova Scotia said. He said that the infrastructure program has a highway component to it. Ottawa will provide less than $5 million per year for improvements to Nova Scotia highways.

This is a real serious issue in Nova Scotia. There is a highway in Nova Scotia called Highway 101. It has more fatal accidents on it per mile driven than any highway in Canada. There is no money to fix this highway. Yet the federal government allots $5 million a year to Nova Scotia for highway work. Again, in my first remarks I mentioned that this is about tokenism and this is a token amount of money for highway work for our Province of Nova Scotia and all the other provinces.

The transportation ministers of every province have called on Ottawa for a $17 billion highways program. What does the government come up with? Five million dollars a year for Nova Scotia. It is just a token and it is just literally a joke. Even though revenues from fuel taxes and gas taxes have increased by hundreds of millions of dollars over the last few years, the last decade, this is the situation.

I also mentioned inconsistency in this budget. Again, I come back to Nova Scotia and its highway situation where there is one of the most dangerous highways in Canada. Not only is it the subject of fatalities regularly, but unfortunately the fatalities are mostly young people. There have been 50 fatalities in the last seven years and most of them were young people. All lives are precious, but young lives are even more precious. For this situation to be allowed to continue is unheard of.

The inconsistency part comes in when we consider that in the next two years, under the federal budget and federal funding programs, Newfoundland, the province on one side of Nova Scotia, will get $105 million in highway funding.

New Brunswick, on the other side of us, will get $102 million in highway funding. Nova Scotia in the middle will get zero funding. It is Nova Scotia that has the dangerous highways, the highways that are causing the fatalities.

Certainly, it is totally inconsistent. How can a government say it will give this province $100 million and that one $100 million? I read in the paper yesterday that it may give the city of Montreal $300 million to $100 million because it has traffic jams. Nova Scotia is saddled with the most dangerous highway in Canada and it cannot get one cent in infrastructure money for that highway.

Again, if we look at the money injected into the provinces on either side of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick got $465 million between 1987 and 1998 and Newfoundland got $405 million. Yet Nova Scotia gets zero dollars in the next two years. It is just completely unfair and, again, it is inconsistent.

The amount allotted in the infrastructure program is approximately $5 million a year and will hardly do any work, and certainly will do nothing to solve the fatal deficiencies in Highway 101 in Nova Scotia.

Another problem with the budget and the past practices of the Liberal government, its practice now and its inconsistency in transferring money and sharing the cost of highways, in Atlantic Canada we have ended up with the only two unique toll highways in Canada on the Trans-Canada Highway. We are the only region that has toll highways, one in Nova Scotia and one in New Brunswick. Why were these toll highways built? Because there was no choice. The federal government had no consistent program of cost sharing these highways.

Again, in the case of Nova Scotia, in the next two years there is no money at all for highway construction. The provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick came up with these innovative plans which have proven extremely unpopular, so much so that both governments which implemented them, the Liberal government in New Brunswick and the Liberal government in Nova Scotia, are now defeated and replaced by Conservative governments in both provinces, much to the credit of their plan to put in the toll highways.

Recently the New Brunswick government eliminated the toll highways. Hopefully the province of Nova Scotia will follow suit, but at the moment Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada to have a toll highway on the Trans-Canada.

Again, it is because of inconsistent programs with the federal government with respect to highway funding. If Nova Scotia received the same highway funding in the next two years that Newfoundland or New Brunswick received, it could not only build Highway 101, but it could probably take the tolls off the old Highway 104.

The root causes are inconsistent funding, poor planning, and little control. The auditor general said there is no accountability of money given to the provinces. There is nothing in the budget which will address any of these issues. They are going to stay the same. Nova Scotia will continue to be saddled with the toll highway until it has its finances in order so that it can either take care of the highway or the federal government finally comes around and deals with it.

I mentioned backfilling in my opening remarks. I see much of this budget as backfilling. By that I mean it is replacing the vast amounts of money withdrawn from infrastructure, withdrawn from highways, withdrawn from education, and withdrawn from health care, with tokens to try and help soothe the nerves of Canadians. However, in particular with health care, it is not working.

We have seen the provincial health ministers band together in perhaps an unprecedented fashion. They have united, taken a stand and forced the federal government into a corner. I think we probably will see some movement now in health care funding because the provinces are unanimous in their opposition to this budget we are talking about today, they are unanimous in their opposition to the tokenism provided to health care, and they are unanimous in their opposition to the attitude of the Liberal government which allowed our once famous health care system to deteriorate and be reduced to just a shadow of what it used to be when it was the envy of the whole world.

Along with Bill C-32, yesterday the Minister of Transport made an announcement regarding VIA Rail. He has spent years pondering a plan for VIA Rail. VIA Rail is a special interest of his and in the past it has seemed to be even a passion. I really expected that he was going to come out with an innovative plan, at least along the lines of the recommendations made by the standing committee on transport, which made several recommendations. One would think that the minister would follow these and try to resolve the problem.

The underlying root problem of VIA Rail is that is loses about $200 million a year. There are ways to address that, and one would think the minister would attempt something innovative, something imaginative. What did he do? Yesterday he announced an increased subsidy of $400 million. That is an increased subsidy of 47% in the subsidies to VIA Rail, but there is no vision. That is just to fix the equipment and infrastructure of the VIA Rail system.

There is nothing new. There is nothing additional. There are no additional services, no additional facilities, no additional equipment. It is to maintain and upgrade the equipment which has been allowed to deteriorate for so long.

The incredible thing about the minister's announcement is that the government is going to give $401.9 million to VIA Rail and then the government is going to ask VIA Rail for a business plan with regard to how it is going to spend the money. Can we imagine anyone in the private sector going to the bank and saying “If you lend me $400 million, I will write you a business plan after you approve it and I will explain how I am going to spend the money”. It would not work and we all know it.

Bill C-32, from a transport point of view and from the point of view of Nova Scotia is a budget of tokenism, inconsistency and unfairness.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my remarks to those of my colleague, who serves on the transport committee and who is very definitely concerned with highways.

We cannot talk about highways and highway infrastructure without someone from my area adding something to the debate. It is a national disgrace across Canada and no one from any party on any side of the House will deny that. Our highway system is deplorable.

I would like to make this point to my hon. colleague. The province of Saskatchewan has more miles of highway per capita than any other province. I would like to inform the member that if we extract what Saskatchewan will probably get, it is about $150 million this year.

I would like to explain to the hon. member that if we were to sand-seal only number 13 highway that runs across just my constituency, the $150 million would be gone. That is the end of federal subsidies to highways in Saskatchewan.

I can assure the hon. member that the amount of money that the province of Nova Scotia is getting is comparable to the pitiful amount that we are getting. There will not be any improvement in highway construction.