Mr. Speaker, the budget presented yesterday is really one that contains an awful lot of smoke and mirrors in terms of the wizardry of the Minister of Finance. In fact, there are probably more tricks in this budget than there are in the Harry Potter movie. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors and a lot of bark but very little bite in this budget when it comes to what is really necessary for the people of this country.
The budget is really a budget of missed opportunities on the part of the federal government. The only thing the government addresses is the issue of national security and much of that was under pressure from the United States in terms of our national security budget, which will be $7.7 billion over the next six years. About $2.2 billion of that, though, will be recuperated in terms of a special fee or tax on air travellers in the country.
When I was travelling the country with the finance committee, person after person told us what they really wanted was economic security. The government has missed an opportunity to provide some economic security for the people of our country.
I ask this question: Where is the economic security for Canadian farmers who are suffering and leaving the land? A farm bill in the United States that has gone through the house of representatives will supply American farmers with $173 billion over the next 10 years if it goes through the senate and gets approved by the president. This money is on top of $70 billion already approved and spent in the last four years in the United States. American farmers get four times as much from their government as our farmers get in Canada. European farmers get seven times as much as our farmers. Where is the security for the farmers of Canada?
Where is the security for the 7.5% of the Canadian population that is unemployed? There is an accumulated surplus in the EI fund of $36 billion, much of which is used through general revenues to fund a tax cut for wealthy people and corporations. Where is the security for the unemployed? Why did the government not extend eligibility benefits? Why do we not make sure that the benefit period is extended? Most unemployed people now do not qualify for EI. In fact it is predicted that in Toronto about 80% of those who are unemployed worked in the service industry and will not qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. Where is the security for the unemployed in Canada?
Where is the economic security for our aboriginal people, the first nations of this country? The United Nations human resources index states that Canada is the third best nation to live in, but when using the same index for first nations people Canada becomes the 63rd best nation to live in. People are living in Third World conditions in Canada, yet there is no economic development and no economic security for them in this budget. Why is it not there?
Where is there something about the economic security of children in Canada? I remember very clearly that, twelve years ago, in 1989, one child in seven was living in poverty in our country. Now, twelve years later, the ratio is one child in five, or 20% of all children, living in poverty. Where is the security for children in Canada?
Where is the security for people who need housing? There are many people in need of housing. If we were to build houses in Canada it would create two and a half jobs per house. Where is this in the budget? This is also missing.
Where is there national security for our health system? Our health system has suffered substantial budgetary cuts, substantial cutbacks, in 1995, to the hands of the Minister of Finance. However, yesterday, there was absolutely nothing for our health system in the minister's budget.
Where in the budget is there security for people who need jobs in this country, for the 7.5% who are unemployed, for the 43,000 people that lost full time jobs last year? Then we have some 57,000 people who have part time jobs. Where is the vision for creating jobs?
Where is the security in this country for the environment? Where is the environmental security? Where is the commitment to Kyoto? Where are the funds to clean up waste disposal sites? Where is the money to look for alternative fuels and where is the money to retrofit buildings in this country? It is not there.
Where is that economic security? This is a budget of missed opportunities. I am surprised that the parliamentary secretary can sit there in the confidence that this is a good budget knowing his past record on some of these things.
What is the Liberal vision? Do they have a vision? They have a vision of a low wage, part time economy where there are jobs at Tim Hortons but not at IPSCO in Regina in the steel mill or at General Motors in Oshawa. That is the vision of the Liberal Party across the way.
The Liberal vision is one where the income gap in our country is widening each and every day but bank profits are going up despite a slow economy, with $9.3 billion in profits last year and $9.6 billion the year before. We see the constant vision of a deferral of investment in the human and physical infrastructure in this country which is in need of money now. We see a vision of a loss of sovereignty in our country and of giving more and more control of Canada to people who live outside our borders.
We see a vision of a smaller and smaller federal government. In the 1980s the government represented 16.4% of the GDP and now it is at 11.3%. This is the smallest it has been since 1949. It is a vision that is really an adoption of the Reform-Alliance agenda and the only thing that makes that budget look good across the way is the Alliance Party of Canada. Every morning when the Minister of Finance gets out of bed he gets up and says “Thank God for the Alliance, thank God for the Leader of the Opposition, thank God for the Reform Party and thank God for the former leader of the Reform Party of Canada,” because they are implementing their agenda. This is exactly where they want to go.
Our country needs a new vision. We need a vision where there is once again a role for the government in leading the way in helping plan a mixed economy. There is a role for the government and people realized that after September 11 and the problems with security.
There is also a role for the Bank of Canada to once again assume more of the national debt. At one time about 20% of the national debt was held by the Bank of Canada. The national debt is now down to 8% or 9%. This role of the bank would give the government more fiscal flexibility.
We need a vision in the country where jobs are the number one priority, where yesterday we would have spent 1% of our GDP in terms of investment on infrastructure, housing, social programs and agriculture. That has to be the priority of the government.
We need a vision of creating wealth in Canada by investing in education, training and skills because knowledge is power and knowledge is wealth in the future.
We need a vision where the role of small business is more important. Small business today creates 80% of the new jobs, and 80% of small businesses, by the way, have revenues of less than $1 million per year. That is where a lot of the action is.
We need a vision that has a dream of an environmental society and a sustainable environment in our country where we have a greener economy and a dream of social programs that are fully enhanced and fully funded to create more equality of conditions for all the people of Canada.
We also need a new international vision, where the IMF and the World Bank are democratically accountable to the people of the world and where the WTO is not the new world government and we worship at the altar of large corporations.
We need a vision of more foreign aid, a vision of a world economic development organization so that we could have a new Marshall Plan for places such as Europe and Afghanistan, a vision where we have a tax like the Tobin tax on currency speculation to fund international development and slow down the speculation in currency. This is the kind of vision we need.
I think we also need a vision of having the sovereignty and the independence of our country once again reclaimed, because we are losing our country. Chapter 11 of NAFTA, the national treatment clause of the trade deals, gives more rights to corporations than to people. People working in other countries require a working visa, but corporations can come in without any visa and dictate the rules and buy up our country at will. This has to be changed.
We are selling out our country. Even the boss of the Royal Bank, Gordon Nixon, for whom the member across the way used to work, said in Regina that in the last two and half years 20% of our publicly traded companies on the TSE had been sold out and that 23 of 35 companies on the oil and gas index on the TSE have been sold to foreigners, mainly Americans.
Since 1985 we have lost about 13,000 companies in this country. They were sold to foreigners, mainly in the United States. That includes these companies: MacMillan Bloedel, Tim Hortons, Shoppers Drug Mart, Gulf, Laura Secord chocolates, the CNR, and soon the CPR, and the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, sold to Gillette of the United States.
In addition to selling out our companies, we are privatizing. The government privatized the administration of Canada savings bonds to EDS of Texas last year on June 30, the day before Canada Day, the very symbol of our sovereignty.
In my last half minute, let me say that in the future we are in danger of losing our dollar, our loonie, our currency, as more and more people across the way, and the Reform and the Bloc, are talking about using a currency in common with the United States, the American dollar, which will be controlled by the Americans and the American federal reserve.
I will conclude by saying it was a budget of missed opportunities, but we have great potential to take control of our economy, to take control of our sovereignty and to make this country whole and great once again.