The Minister of Industry, the Tobin tidbit, who wanted $4 billion, settled for $110 million in new money for high speed network technology, which is $110 million more than the desperate and basic agriculture industry received in the budget.
The Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Human Resources Development are allowed to keep on wasting millions of dollars in their grants and contributions programs despite the clear and repeated criticisms of the auditor general.
In a country in recession the Minister of Finance needs to impose discipline on his colleagues, but the minister is a candidate for his party's leadership and so he does not hold to account the cabinet colleagues whose leadership votes he needs.
There is not a single cent of new money for agriculture. Nor does the budget provide for a rollover of unused safety net funds from previous years as requested by farm organizations. Farmers need a long term vision. They need to move beyond year to year crisis management. The budget provides neither for agriculture.
The same goes for health care financing. The budget contains no new initiative for this issue of such great concern to Canadians.
To use a phrase from another time, the minister had options. He had a choice. He could have used the good economic times of the last few years to bring up funding for health care, defence and other priorities. He could have been a leader in tax reform in those good years when Ireland, Germany and the United States were pulling dramatically ahead of Canada. Instead he drifted through the good times and now has to deal with defence and security issues that should have been addressed long ago.
The contribution to national defence is pitiful. It is an insult to the men and women who serve Canada abroad in whatever theatre. As part of the much vaunted security package the budget gives the Department of National Defence $629 million over five years for the Canadian forces. However the department's own business plan states that it is $1.3 billion short per year to fulfill the tasks already assigned to it. The government adds more new tasks than money.
Once the funds are stripped away, allocated to the current commitment to the war in Afghanistan and earmarked for JTF2, the military would only receive $300 million to deal with capital programs. That would only buy five search and rescue helicopters, or three Hercules planes, or one C-17A heavy transport. There would be no money to replace the CF-18 fleet, the Iroquois class destroyers and the Aurora maritime patrol aircraft fleet. Yet they are all due to be retired by the end of the decade.
The government proposes to invest $1.2 billion itself in a security policy and have taxpayers contribute another $2.2 billion in higher ticket fees.
As regards our border, Canada could have shown leadership by proposing a typically Canadian action plan. However, because of our silence, the silence of the Government of Canada, we have to settle for the American proposal, which provides, among other things, for the presence of American helicopters at the Canadian border.
On the issue of foreign aid, the government has obviously completely wiped out any potential benefits from our contribution to humanitarian aid. By reducing aid levels, as they have done since 1993, they have severely reduced our capacity to act on the international level. The budget tabled yesterday damages but in no way rehabilitates our reputation around the world.
The government's record on foreign aid has been abysmal over the last seven years. We fall well below the OECD average on foreign aid spending. Currently we are at 0.25% of GNP, down from 0.46% in 1992 and far below the UN target, the Lester Pearson target of 0.7%.
The real challenge for Canada is to become internationally competitive again. We must pay down our national mortgage. There should be a scheduled debt reduction plan that would force the government to pay down our debt. The government could eliminate plenty of waste. It could start with the $125 million it is spending on advertising and polling. There is a good place to start.
The budget would repeat last year's pre-election tax cuts. However, after taking into account bracket CPP premium increases and the child tax benefit, that would still keep current levels of taxation above those of 1993. The only major tax break would defer the taxes of smaller corporations, the fancy accounting whose only purpose would be to hide the deficit next year. It is notable that no similar relief is being offered the unincorporated small business owners, farmers or fishermen.
On the transparency and accountability fronts, the finance minister is sending troubling signals about the future direction of his government. Again, we are witnessing the establishment of a new foundation.
Last week the auditor general criticized the government for establishing these foundations. This week the government sets up yet another one. The strategic infrastructure foundation would not answer to parliament. It would be run by a board of Liberal Party friends. It would be another step into the darkness where more and more of the activities of government would be conducted in secret and at great distance from parliament which exists to control the spending of the Government of Canada.
Last week, the auditor general noted in her report, and I quote:
While the foundations will support worthy causes, I am...also concerned that Parliament has only limited means of holding the government to account for the public policy functions performed by these foundations.
She continues:
There are many ways for the government to pursue its policy objectives. It has not yet assessed the appropriateness, the cost, or the effectiveness of this particular vehicle. I think it should.
That she said last week, in saying stop this practice. What did they do? They turned around and they set up another corporation that parliament cannot get at, whose records will be secret, run by Liberal Party lackeys distorting the Canadian public interest.
It is ironic that this half budget, this guise pretends to be a response to the terrorist attacks because those terrorist attacks showed the Liberal government at its most inept. While Tony Blair played a leading role in responding to the terror, there was no one home at 24 Sussex Drive, just as there has been no one home, no leadership on economic policy in a decade. We are paying a price for that now.
The budget yesterday was an opportunity for Canada to begin to face the possibilities of the future, to begin to turn around the growing recession. This half budget is the latest proof that the government is letting Canada down and is costing us our future. Canadians deserve better than this short term, shortsighted budget.