Mr. Speaker, I am not generally reluctant to offer my opinion on budgetary matters but today is different.
As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, my role is to listen, to sit here in the House and take note of the ideas hon. members have on the budget.
As members know, it has been a tradition for some years to have a prebudget take note debate. Traditionally it has been in the last couple of weeks of December but it is fairly evident that we would not want the take note debate to occur after the budget. Since the budget this year will be in December we are having the debate today.
While I do not want to give my own opinions, it might be useful to provide a bit of economic context for the setting in which we find ourselves and perhaps describe possible options without indicating which of those options the government or I prefer.
It is now clear, I believe, that the world economy, and the U.S. economy in particular, was experiencing a major downturn even before September 11 because consumer confidence had dropped significantly in the United States the week before that.
If the world were in the midst of a slowdown prior to September 11, it is obvious that the tragic events of that day made things worse. For the first time in some years we find ourselves in a synchronized global economic slowdown. Just about every region of the world is in the midst of that slowdown including Europe and Japan, which has been in trouble for a decade or more. South America, particularly Argentina, has problems. North America is slowing down. The only place that is not slowing down is that of China, but it is not a particularly large fraction of the world.
It is of some consolation that Canada is slowing down at a slower rate than our neighbours to the south. That may be in part because of the tax cuts brought in by the government in early January.
Canada is holding up better than the U.S. at this time. However we do not have a wall around our country. We are part of the North American and global economy, and there is absolutely no doubt that all of us are slowing down.
It is also true the majority of economists are making the argument that the Canadian and global economy will pick up in the second half of next year. They base their argument on sound fundamentals and a considerable fiscal stimulus. I believe this is the most likely case.
The events of September 11 are without precedent. Nobody can be certain that this recovery will occur. It is the best information we have based on what the majority of experts tell us. Life changes from day to day and from week to week. Everyone in the House would agree that we are living in extraordinarily uncertain times.
Now, I would like to touch briefly upon certain options. The government is prepared to listen to any ideas from hon. members, but I can present some options, whether they have government support or not.
The first concerns surpluses and deficits. The first question I would ask hon. members is this: are you really very serious, or not, about the necessity of our not getting back into a deficit situation? The government has its own ideas on this, but we would like to know what members of all political parties think about the degree of importance to be attached to not going back to the deficit situation of the past.
I have mentioned the deficit, I will now speak about taxation. There are those who would like to delay some of the tax cuts to which the government has committed itself. There are those who would like to accelerate them. There are those in the middle who would like to carry through on them but neither accelerate nor delay them.
It would be interesting to hear what members of parliament including those in the Canadian Alliance have to say on the issue of taxation.
Finally, there is the matter of expenditures. These can, I think, be classified into two groups: those related to security, and the rest.
It seems that by far the majority of Canadians, myself included—here, I am expressing an opinion—set expenditures relating to security as a very high priority for at least two reasons. First, and most important, is the protection of Canadians' lives and security, and second is convincing the Americans that we are serious and do not represent a security risk.
As everyone is aware, it is absolutely crucial from the economic point of view for goods and individuals to be able to cross the Canada-U.S. border.
We have the security related expenditures that one can look at as a group. Then we have everything else, all manner of possible projects. It would be useful for the government to hear the opinions of members on all sorts of initiatives that are on the agenda including innovation, learning, children, urban affairs, major environmental concerns, increased foreign aid to less developed countries and initiatives related to the poor living conditions of our aboriginal population. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but those are some of the possible areas of new expenditure initiatives.
I do not want to give my opinion. At the same time I do not want to indicate that the government has no opinion. I will mention two points that the Minister of Finance made explicitly. He said he would work like hell to avoid returning to a deficit. He also said he would honour the tax cut commitment. Members of the House may have different points of view. If so, we look forward to hearing them.
I would like to make a point regarding adding up. It is not useful if an individual proposes that we have large increases in expenditures on whatever the case may be, have large additional tax cuts and keep a balanced budget. The government's point of view is that it is more useful if the proposals add up. We cannot have big spending increases, big tax cuts and maintain a balanced budget.
I look forward to listening to the opinions of members. I will be taking notes, consulting the written version of the debate and reporting back to the minister on the sentiments of members of parliament.