Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke. It is my delight to be able to rise in the House to enter into the debate about the most important function parliament should be providing: oversight of the expenditure of taxpayer money.
We are talking today in a prebudget take note debate. The motion of the government is that we simply take note of the debate. That leaves it pretty wide open. Our leader, the leader of the official opposition, has moved a significant amendment. Besides taking note of ongoing prebudget consultations the amendment says:
and in particular, the need to increase spending on national defence and public security by reducing waste and spending in low and falling priority areas, such as the proposed new Industry Canada-HRDC strategy paper, preserve and accelerate scheduled tax reductions, restore confidence in the Canadian dollar, and avoid falling back into a fiscal deficit.
The hon. Bloc member for Drummond has moved a further amendment. She has added the words “while improving the employment insurance system” to the motion and the amendment. That is what we are dealing with today and I will add a few comments about it.
It is a man thing. We do not like to ask for directions. We will drive around looking for a place. If we happen to find it that is great and if we do not that is too bad. I must confess that another man thing has caught me a couple of times although now that I am in my mature years I am finally over it.
I had a habit of driving my vehicle until the gasoline tank was almost empty. This happened on several occasions. On probably three or four of these occasions my wife asked why I did not stop for gasoline. We were going through a town which had service stations and the gauge said the tank was near empty. I told my wife there was no problem and said we could get to the next town. On three or four sad and, shall I say, emotional occasions I ended up walking for gasoline.
The reason I say this is that when we drive through a town where service stations are ready to serve and then get out into the country and run out of gas, we have missed an important opportunity. That is what I want to emphasize today. The government in its budgetary practices of the last seven or eight years has missed a golden opportunity. I mean that in the truest sense of the word.
There is no better time to pay down debt and get our fiscal house in order than when times are fiscally good. They have been good in the last four or five years.
The finance minister, the Prime Minister and all other members of the government like to gloat and say they are the ones who were so great at managing the economic and financial affairs of the country. They say they have surpluses and have paid down the debt.
However they have dropped the ball big time on this issue, an issue we have heard about in the finance committee over and over again: the need to reduce our debt.
It is important when times are good to get rid of the debt. However the Liberal government, while gloating that it has managed the financial affairs of the country so well, has failed miserably. It has driven through town when fuel was available and run out of gas in the country. How did that happen?
If we ask Mr. Average on the street whether we have less debt now than we did when the Liberals were first elected in 1993, most people would say yes, they have paid down a whole bunch of debt.
I will point something out for Canadians who happen to be listening on CPAC or in the hope that the people in the press gallery will report it. When the Liberals took power in 1993 our net debt was $508 billion. Under their watch the debt grew. Four years later in 1997 it reached a peak of $583 billion. In the last couple of years the Liberals have paid down a bit of it so our net debt is now down to $547 billion.
This is my old teaching career coming out here but I wish I had an overhead so I could show this on a graph. The best I can do is make a picture. The debt grew until 1997. It has since come down a bit. However if we compare our situation now with our debt in 1993, we have a net debt which is $39 billion more than it was in 1993.
We have almost $40 billion more debt now than in 1993. It would not have been possible for any government, no matter how well intentioned, to have stopped borrowing immediately on the day of election. I concede that. It would have taken two or three years for even a prudent government to stop borrowing. However the Liberals drove through town without filling up the tank. They failed to pay down the debt when we had substantial surpluses.
I am miffed about this. When I look at the numbers, I am upset that the Liberals have paid down so little of the debt. By now it should have been down at least to what it was in 1993. It was achievable.
An interesting number threw itself at me when I looked at this. It so happens that our peak debt in 1997 went down by $36 billion to reach the level it is at now. I thank the Liberals. I praise them. I congratulate them for doing at least that. They have reduced the debt by $36 billion.
Do members know what number surprises me? During the same interval the amount of money the government took out of EI contributions minus what it paid in EI happens to be $36 billion. The amount of money the government used to reduce the debt happens to be, to the nearest billion, the same as the amount it took from employers and employees through excessive contributions to the EI fund.
The economy has been rolling. Income tax revenues are way up. Despite its highly effective communication skills the Liberal government has managed to spend all that extra money while taking EI money to apply to the debt. It should have done a great deal more. It should have reduced the debt substantially more than it did.
There is another thing we ought not to forget. During this term of office the government has taken some $30 billion from the public servants pension fund which it managed to spend. It did not apply it to the net debt. It managed to spend it.
Perhaps not all of it belonged to the employees. I argued when the bill was in front of the House that it should have been shared because the employees contributed to it. The taxpayers also ostensibly contributed via the government. However the government took all $30 billion. Where is it now? It is down the tube.
I charge the government with financial mismanagement and missed opportunity.