Mr. Speaker, I was going to start by saying that I am very pleased to be speaking to the budget, but as you will see from my presentation, I am not quite as thrilled as I might be if it were a different budget.
When we are looking at a budget and analyzing the effectiveness of a finance minister and a government in a particular budget, we want to measure that against what has been asked for by Canadians.
From various polls that have been done over the past several months, I want to mention what Canadians in my constituency and across the country have been asking for. The first thing the polls say, and what my constituents certainly say, is that Canadians want increased spending in health care. The second thing Canadians want is the government's commitment to improve security measures. The third thing Canadians want are reduced taxes. The fourth thing Canadians want is debt retirement.
Those were the things Canadians wanted to see in the government's budget. They also added some caveats to the whole thing. They said that under no circumstances was there to be deficit funding on the part of government. They made that clear. They also wanted the government to prioritize its spending so it could meet the needs and desires without running deficits. It was a matter of setting priorities.
Let us look at what the government has done in terms of the four main things Canadians wanted to see in the budget
First, what did the government do in the area of increased spending on health care? There is not one dollar of new spending on health care. Canadians will certainly see that as a complete failure.
The second area concerns reduced taxes. Not only is there no further reduction in taxes through the budget, but there are actually tax increases. For example, there is $2.2 billion over five years through the new airport tax to help pay for security. There is in fact an increase in tax, not only that, there are some others in the budget as well. I think Canadians will certainly judge that on the issue of tax reduction the government's budget has failed.
When it comes to debt retirement, even if there were a surplus at the end of this year, the government has said that not a penny of it will go to debt retirement. It will go to other program spending. On the issue of debt retirement, the third issue to which Canadians referred, the government has failed.
Let us go to the fourth area, which is the area of improved defence and security. On this issue I want to take a little more time. Being the official opposition defence critic, I particularly want to look at the defence aspect, but I also want to look at the whole security aspect to some extent.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention right now that I will split my time with the hon. member for Crowfoot. It is better to tell you now than not at all and take his time as well, although with the kind of presentation he gives, it could be kind of borderline anyway. He will have a lot of important things to say so I am looking forward to his comments.
I heard a couple of government members say that the Canadian Alliance members had asked for a lot of increases in spending and now they were being critical. That is true, we did ask for a lot of increases in spending, but we wanted it targeted to exactly the areas asked for by Canadians. We wanted it to go into health care and into security, both of which are important to Canadians. Security is important because of the events of September 11, although the threat has been there for some time.
In response to my questions today, a couple of members said that we could not have it both ways, that we could not ask for increased spending and then criticize the government when it spends too much.
Well we can because what the government fails to understand is that we can target spending much better. For example, as the auditor general pointed out, the $16 billion that goes to grants and contributions is improperly scrutinized. Much of it goes to friends of the Liberals. We have seen various demonstrations of this over the past couple of years.
Spending should be scrutinized and the money should be better spent. It has actually been proven that regional economic development programs are harmful to the very regions they are there to serve. That could be eliminated entirely. We also have low priority spending areas, such as much of the spending the finance minister has allocated equally, as he puts it, between the various leadership candidates in the Liberal leadership race. The industry minister, the health minister, the finance minister--