Debates of Dec. 13th, 2001

Committees of the House

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

that the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented to the House on Monday, November 26, be concurred in.

I rise today to speak in concurrence with the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Finance, the prebudget consultation report.

We have completed two days of budget debate in the House but the government has not seen fit to continue the budget debate before the Christmas recess. It would rather debate gun control and animal rights than the essential business of the people of Canada in building economic and national security.

I know the government House leader has been trying to change that today but he is not having much success with other parties within the House to continue the budget debate so I am having to use this method to make sure that my party lets the Canadian public know how we feel.

Before we get into the budget and into the substance of my remarks, I have to use this opportunity to express the outrage of Her Majesty's loyal opposition at the remarks made by the spouse of Her Majesty's viceregal representative.

John Ralston Saul is known by the title, His Excellency, and performs official functions as consort of the Governor General and is prominently featured on the Governor General's website. Therefore his remarks are not those of an ordinary private citizen but those of a representative of the crown.

In his latest book he attacks our American allies accusing their aggressivity of leading, at least in part, to the horrific September 11 attacks. He, as the consort of our royal representative, personally attacked President George W. Bush, the head of state of our greatest ally, the United States.

The Prime Minister himself has called the United States not only our friends and neighbours but our family. This is not how we treat family.

I urge the government to rein in these highly inappropriate political remarks by the representative who is supposed to be above politics. As a former governor general, Ed Schreyer, said “Mr. Saul is leading us into uncharted waters”. He said of his own spouse, who was deeply involved in social issues, that she kept her political opinions private. Her judgment was to refrain from making any statements that directly or indirectly related back to contemporary political controversy. There will be more to follow in question period on this issue.

In order to continue the debate, the official opposition would like to bring the attention of the House toward the excellent report of the committee, which made sensible recommendations, and the travesty of the finance minister's budget, which has been justly dubbed 2001, a waste odyssey.

Like the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey , this may be called budget 2001 but it seems to have been written in the 1960s. One of the Prime Minister's communications staff said a couple of weeks ago that the budget would be written by one person. It happens to be the Prime Minister of Canada, not the finance minister.

I thought it was quite funny yesterday when we actually asked that question and we got both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance not knowing who should stand up. They both stood up and grabbed the Deputy Prime Minister's hand and said that maybe he did it.

If it is true that the Prime Minister wrote the budget, it certainly explains why it so closely resembles the tax and spend budgets of the Liberal governments when the Prime Minister was finance minister in the late 1970s.

Indeed, the spending increases we have seen in the last two years were the biggest spending growth in real terms that we have seen since the Prime Minister's own budgets. Program spending in the coming year will rise by at least 9.3% or $11 billion. This is on top of a 6.7% increase in spending the year before. This is a 16% spending increase in just two years from a government that boasts about its sound fiscal management. These are irresponsible and unsustainable levels of spending.

Spending is growing nearly nine times faster than the economy which will only grow by 1.1%. It is increasing far faster than the growth rate of inflation and population. It is increasing faster than the productive capacity of the economy to grow and sustain this level of spending.

Dale Orr of WEFA, one of the country's leading economists, said “these spending increases are unsustainable”. Let us consider the wild growth and projected spending for the current year. In the 1999 fall economic update, the finance minister projected $118 billion in spending for this year. By February 2000 that had risen to $121.5 billion. By the fall 2000 mini budget, it was up to $124.6 billion.

Today the government is saying it would spend $130.5 billion. Clearly the spending path of the government is out of control.

We in the official opposition agree that in the wake of September 11 increased spending in some areas was necessary, especially in national defence and security. Most of this money could have been found by cutting waste and mismanagement in the pre-existing $120 billion in government spending.

Furthermore it is important to point out that of the $10.4 billion in new spending over the next three years less than 40% would be allocated for national security as promised by the government since the election. Over 60% of the new spending would be on Liberal pet projects, not for safety and security of Canadians. Of that 60% not a dime would be provided for health care services. So much for priorities. The finance minister said on September 17:

We are looking at what are the lower priority areas and how do we make sure that we can fund the higher priority areas.

The finance committee endorsed this sensible approach in its prebudget report. The parliamentary secretary to the minister who stands up and defends the government in question period put his name to the report. The committee's report stated:

To the extent that new spending on security and defence could lead to a deficit, the government must balance this new spending with spending cutbacks elsewhere.

I looked at the Liberal website where the Minister of Finance said that he could not find any waste areas. He should take the auditor general out for lunch. She could fill him in on about $16.5 billion in waste that the government could cut.

[An hon. member]

I'll pay for the meal.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Somebody on our side has even volunteered to pay for lunch to help taxpayers out. It recommended that the federal government:

Limit program spending growth to the rate of inflation plus population growth.

It also recommended:

The government follow the program review process while maintaining a balanced budget in the face of new priority spending.

The committee quoted David Paterson of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance who said:

Increased spending on security is essential, but we believe it can be offset by reduced spending on less important programs. New initiatives can be postponed until a budget surplus has been restored to a more adequate level.

This was not the Canadian Alliance speaking. This was a government dominated committee report signed by the minister's own parliamentary secretary. The government broke every one of these recommendations. I guess that is a separate debate of how functional committees are in the House of Commons these days.

For the Liberals there was no reallocation, not one dime of cuts to waste and no choosing between priorities. Apparently for the government everything was a priority, except perhaps farmers, sick people on hospital waiting lists, or men and women serving in our armed forces who got next to nothing in the budget. However there was money for TV and film producers, pet projects of Liberal leadership candidates and African governments. There were special grants for everything from woodlots to wind power.

Yesterday I looked in the paper and saw that the Prime Minister had sort of agreed with Mr. Mandela to put $500 million into Africa. I do not disagree with that. I do not disagree with Mr. Mandela becoming a citizen. I thought that was a wonderful award to a gentleman who had made an impact on the world.

However I also thought it was strange that we were taking a person from a foreign country, honouring him in Canada, yet one of our leading Canadians, Conrad Black, was refused an honour in a foreign country by the government. The government spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to prevent it from happening. It forced him to become a citizen of another country when all that country wanted to do was recognize a great citizen of Canada who had done very well in the financial world.

I thought it was strange that we were prepared to give $500 million to honour somebody from outside the country but not let one of our own people receive the same honours from another country which is one of our neighbours, one of the members of the Commonwealth and certainly part of our blood. I thought that was rather strange. It shows how the government really works.

The Liberals claim this was a balanced approach to budget making. When we hear a Liberal talking about a balanced approach we should check our wallet and count our silverware. To a Liberal finance minister a balanced approach means striking an equal balance between waste and management.

In order to pay for all the slush the budget broke the finance minister's solemn word on prudent fiscal management in previous budgets and appearances before the finance committee. The so-called prudence factor has been eliminated. We have known for years that the government had no prudence, but we did not expect it to confirm that in black and white in the budget.

It raided the contingency reserve fund, a special fund allocated for debt paydown at the end of the year. In the increasingly unlikely event that we do go into a deficit, it has already promised money for new spending on infrastructure and African aid, as I mentioned earlier. As recently as last May the finance minister piously told us:

It is not a source of funding for new policy initiatives. If not needed, it is used to pay down the public debt.

A few months ago this was an emergency cushion not to be touched and if anything was left over it was to go toward long term debt paydown. Now the contingency reserve is just another Liberal slush fund.

Let us look at some of the spending increases made in the budget and the identified waste that was not touched.

Some of the spending the government proposes sounds good and noble in its purposes. However when we look at the reality it is not clear it would fulfill its objectives or that the money could not have been found elsewhere.

For example, the government would allocate $185 million for aboriginal children, for programs such as measures to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome. Some Liberals applaud and I agree, but let me continue. This is a valuable priority, but there is some $7 billion already being spent on aboriginal affairs by the government. It is clear that much of this money is wasted. It is not getting through to ordinary aboriginal people on reserves or in urban centres. It is not helping aboriginal communities to overcome the challenges of substance abuse, poverty and crime.

Indian Affairs has received the largest spending increase of any department over the past six or seven years, but we see no improvements for our aboriginal people. That is a sad commentary. Throwing money at it will not solve the problem. The amount of money going in sounds good and, yes, we could applaud it, but when we look at the overall picture it is pretty sad.

If the government thought that $185 million for fetal alcohol syndrome would help things, could it not have found in the $7 billion some programs that were not working and reallocate? This is a government that was sending aboriginal leaders and bureaucrats on Caribbean cruises with money that was supposed to go to substance abuse. We forget that very quickly. It was the Christmas before last that we received the picture of the Caribbean cruise.

The auditor general talks about waste. The government throws $185 million into the budget for something to get a headline. It sounds really good. However that department is full of waste and the auditor general has pointed it out. Hopefully this winter they are not going on any cruises.

The government cannot tell the House there was no money to reallocate in the existing budget. The finance minister, or perhaps it was the Prime Minister helping the finance minister's rival, gave the Minister of Industry $110 million for his pet Internet project. That was $110 million to soothe his wounded ego for not getting the full $4 billion enchilada for his crazy scheme to lay fibre optic cable to every hamlet, homestead and outport in the country. It was a parting gift of $110 million to the budget loser. On game shows, losers of the big prize get a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni and a copy of the home game.

There was $160 million for the heritage minister and her rich friends in the television industry. That may sound great to cappuccino sippers in Yorkville and in Banff when folks from Yorkville visit there one week a year. However it does nothing for farmers, patients waiting for hip replacements or soldiers flying in 40 year old Sea Kings.

There was $170 million given to the Minister of Health for programs that will do nothing for patients but will keep plenty of Ottawa bureaucrats very busy. The provinces received nothing for delivering health care services to the people who are on hospital waiting lists.

Most of these programs are not necessary at all. However, if the government in its wisdom felt that these were top priorities, even in a time of recession and war, then for heaven's sake it should have cut some of the fat elsewhere in the system to pay for them.

The auditor general's report pointed to the pool of $16.3 billion in voted grants and contributions. It said:

The government still has a lot to do to fix the chronic problems in the way it manages grants and contributions.

It is not the opposition saying that. It is the auditor general who has the respect of all Canadians and looks at the books. Opposition parties should read them carefully because some day they may be in government and will be criticized by the opposition who is the government today. It went on to say:

Our most recent audits found a government-wide control system for grants and contributions that is not yet rigorous enough to ensure the proper management of public funds. We are concerned that serious and correctable problems remain unexamined and uncorrected.

It is not like this auditor general is the first one to say that. We are talking about $16.3 billion. It sounds easy to say, but we should think of the people in British Columbia who are out of work because we cannot solve the softwood lumber fix, close to 30,000, who read the paper because they have a lot of time these days.

The auditor general found in a short period of time that the government had $16.3 billion that was unmanaged and unexplainable. People are becoming pretty upset and we are hearing about it. I have never had so many replies from constituents about an auditor general's report. Perhaps it is because a lot of people are unemployed, not just in my home province of British Columbia but across Canada, in the softwood lumber industry, the auto industry and the high tech industries.

They are concerned when they see this kind of waste. We do not need headline budgets for the quick spin. We need to solve real problems for the unemployed in the country. We need a plan and a mission to get the country back to work again, not just spin doctoring the headlines across Canada. The auditor general went on to state:

Management practices were uneven among the programs we audited. Most programs had significant shortcomings in one area or more--program design, performance, measurement, project approval, or project monitoring.

The auditor general identified money for AIDS and prostate cancer programs that was given out improperly, with poor management. Both are great programs and make great headlines when the government announces what it is doing. They get support from all sides of the House, but the money and the programs have to be managed.

The auditor general questioned $400 million in loans given by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to companies that were bankrupt. She questioned whether ACOA's job creation claims were justified. How many times in the House has my party been accused of being against Atlantic Canadians because we questioned ACOA? Many times, and not only by the government but by other members of the House from Atlantic Canada. We thought we were being responsible asking questions about grants going to questionable companies.

I will mention it again so that it sinks in. The auditor general questioned $400 million in loans given out by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, much of which went to companies that were bankrupt. She questioned whether ACOA's job creation claims were justified.

This is pork barrelling and patronage. We are rife with it. I thank the auditor general for justifying all the questions my party asked in the House in the last 10 years about this agency. It is about time there is an even closer look. Perhaps there are better ways to create jobs. I know that some think-tanks in Atlantic Canada stated publicly that this was not the way to create jobs in Atlantic Canada.

Problems cannot be solved in the country by giving money away. We have not solved the problems with native people and we have been doing it for 100 years. We have to come up with some serious plans on how the country will operate.

The auditor general found $9 million in Canadian heritage grants that were given out without application forms being filed. I will mention again that it is not the Canadian Alliance saying that.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Order, please. I would ask hon. members to continue their conversations outside the House. The Chair is having trouble hearing what the hon. member is saying.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Madam Speaker, I know some people are anxious to get home for Christmas and I guess they are trying to negotiate as I am speaking. However, I am quite happy to keep going.

I read in what I think was the Ottawa Citizen this morning, or one of the other newspapers, that some leaders in another country have all been arrested because they spent some money on airplanes that they could not justify. Here we have $9 million in Canadian heritage grants given out without application forms being filed. How can that happen? We ask but we are not getting answers. I am sure that every member of the House, no matter what their party, must wonder why. However, we have not received any answers to that. I can assure everyone that over the next few months we will ask those questions.

I am sure the auditor general must have some good ideas as to how we can stop this problem. I think every Canadian wants to know, in detail, the list of those grants, who they went to and why they went to them.

The auditor general found that $100 million was given to Downsview Park Inc., in the riding of the Minister of National Defence, without parliamentary authorization. I do not have my notes with me to see when he got that, but I know we just had an election a year ago. I would not doubt that it was sometime prior to that. Perhaps it was not, but it is good for the next election.

How does anyone get $100 million without parliamentary authorization? If we asked that question in this House, we would hear some answer that it was in a budget and that it was all approved, then the government would sit down and say it is wonderful. However the auditor general has said that $100 million went out without parliamentary authorization. It should shock every member of the House that any minister would have that kind of power to get that kind of money without parliamentary authorization.

The auditor general found money for aboriginal policing being spent to pay for officers who were not even hired. I go back to a nice announcement of $185 million for fetal alcohol syndrome, but money for aboriginal policing was paid for people who were not even hired. It is time we have accountability in these areas of government waste to ensure that all taxpayer dollars are being properly spent.

All this waste was found in her audit. She did not even dig into many other departments in that $16.3 billion of mismanaged government grants. There is waste and mismanagement galore here. If the government insists on putting money toward its pet projects, it should at least get serious about reviewing and cutting some of the pet projects of past years and past ministers, which are happily being carried on without any accountability.

Even before this budget was tabled, the Canadian Alliance identified $6 billion to $7 billion of low priority spending which could have been reallocated to pay for national security and health care or to tax cuts and debt load. We did that with a fairly modest budget to run a whole party, certainly a lot less than the auditor general has, with a research department that works very diligently. The auditor general has found $16.3 billion.

There is no reason to have an increase in spending this year. We could have decreased our spending, paid down the debt and still have been ahead of the game if we managed this business properly.

The government gives out $1.2 billion in corporate welfare grants every year. It gives out $1 billion a year in regional development schemes like western economic diversification. There is a $1 billion annual subsidy to the CBC to fund a television network that competes directly for viewers and advertisers with the private sector. It could probably thrive if it were allowed to raise private sector capital itself.

I was at CPAC last night during one of its political shows. What a great job it is doing. In this day and age of satellite dishes, we are still subsidizing another network which should be competitive and out on its own. It is great that the government sponsors CBC Radio because it serves every little corner of the country. However, as far as my party and I are concerned, CBC television should be sold. It should be competitive with all other networks in Canada and in the world. We would all be better off for it.

There is a massive waste in Indian Affairs. There is a half billion dollar registry for duck hunters.

As well, the government still owns a $2 billion stake in Petro-Canada and Hibernia, even though it promised years ago that it would sell its shares in those ventures and even though the finance committee urged it to get rid of Petro-Canada in its recent report.

I do not know for sure, but $2 billion off the debt might bump our dollar up a couple of pennies. Most politicians agree with their constituents that government should not be in business. It should be running the country the best way it can. We should not be in the oil and gas business nor any other type of business where we compete. Why does the Prime Minister not tell the Minister of Finance to sell Petro-Canada and get it off the books and put that money against the debt of this country?

Instead of reallocation and making tough choices, instead of choosing between low priority spending and high priority spending, the Prime Minister and the finance minister refuse to choose. This is why the government will run a $1.9 billion cash deficit next year, which the American congress would call an actual deficit. That is why, using its own accounting standards from previous years, the government has a planning deficit of $6.2 billion over the next three years. In the words of an official in the Toronto-Dominion Bank, that is why the government has to use fancy accounting footwork for its deficit plan. Talk about hidden agendas.

The Minister of Finance quotes other people. He can always find somebody because there are always lots of Liberals out there who can write nice reports. I do not find that offensive. What I do find rather disturbing is people of the calibre of the Toronto-Dominion Bank talking about hidden agendas and fancy accounting footwork.

Canadians do not want fancy accounting footwork. They want no debt in this country. They want proper management of their tax dollars, and the auditor general has proven this year that they are not getting that. That is why we are on the brink of a real deficit. A sharper economic turndown or a slower recovery could push us back into another string of Liberal deficits, and we certainly do not need that in Canada.

The government has missed the potential to save at least $50 billion over the next four years because of its reckless spending. That is $50 billion that could have gone toward powerful tax relief or debt reduction for all our grandchildren. I know not all members have grandchildren, but I have eight with another one on the way. I do not like the fact that they will have to bear this debt and will perhaps ask me someday why they are paying high taxes for debt and why I did not ensure that our finances were handled better in this country.

That estimate is based on the almost universal recommendation by the private sector made up of economists and business groups that the government limit its program spending increases to the rate of inflation plus the growth in population or about 3% per year.

The finance committee reiterated its longstanding recommendation that the government limit spending increases to inflation and population in its most recent report. I said that earlier, but it is worth repeating.

We cannot afford to let the government dig a $50 billion hole. We cannot afford to let this country slip back into deficit. We cannot afford to keep our national debt at a staggering $547 billion and pass these costs on to our children and our grandchildren.

The government must cut waste and mismanagement and reallocate from within existing spending to finance priorities like defence, security and health care. It is the only way we can be assured there will be money left for tax and debt reductions, which this country so badly needs.

Now that I have outlined where the government went wrong, where it spent too much and where it could have and should have cut waste to pay for higher priorities, let me talk about what some of these priorities are.

The first and foremost responsibility of any federal government is to defend national sovereignty and to protect the safety and security of its citizens. That is why the Canadian Alliance, and before it the Reform Party, consistently called for adequate resources for our police, intelligence and defence services. These were calls that went unheeded. We have done this even though we are a party that believes in smaller and less costly government in almost every other area. We believe that freedom is not something we can take for granted. It was worth the price to pay for the defence of freedom.

With this Liberal government and even in this supposed security budget, national security seems to be a low priority, almost an afterthought, for a government that cannot seem to say no to spending in other areas. It is amazing and unbelievable the amount of money allocated for the CBC which could have gone to defence and health care.

Over the last few years the government has routinely dismissed our calls for necessary spending to enhance national security and defence. We made those calls long before September 11. Since September 11, the government response has been too little and too late.

Since 1993 defence spending has been cut by $1.6 billion, a massive 23% reduction in real terms. We have heard the defence minister get up and say that they just put in $1.2 billion or that they have just put that in. The facts are defence spending has been cut by 23%. I do not think that is what Canadians want. They want a good defence, something of which they can be proud. We are proud of our soldiers.

The government says that we are hammering our military people. We are not doing that. We are working for them. We are trying to get the government to live up to what it should be living up to, which is to ensure we have the best trained. Our helicopters are a bit of a joke. All our airplanes are in terrible shape. Equipment is lacking. These reports are from the auditor general. The auditor general herself has said that the military needed a minimum of $1.2 billion this year just to bring it up to scratch. What did we get? We got $250 million.

Why do we have an auditor general, if the government is not going to pay attention? Why do we have an opposition? The government wants to operate like a dictatorship. The government goes along, makes the stories and gets the spin doctors. There are probably more spin doctors hired by this government than by any other government in Canadian history. I thought the former Conservative government was bad on that. Today the Liberals hire the best PR people in the world to spin their stories out there and make them sound wonderful. The facts are our military spending has gone down way too far.

Our troop strength has declined from 90,000 to 58,000. The Conference of Defence Associations, which is the major amnesty group on military issues, said in its recent report that there was a $1.2 billion annual need just to maintain ongoing operations. Similarly, as I said before, the auditor general said there was a $1.3 billion annual shortfall just to maintain existing equipment.

How can we feel proud for our service people when the auditor general says that there is a $1.3 billion shortfall just to maintain the equipment? How can we stand in the House and have a minister of defence tell us nobody will go anywhere unless they are well equipped. We must not be going anywhere. It was the auditor general and not the opposition--

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

For heaven's sakes, John, there is no war.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

I hear a Liberal member down at the other end saying we are not at war. Did he just wake up? This country is at war with the United States against terrorism. I do not know where he has been sleeping.

We are at war. We have troops that have been leaving this country to go to war. Talk to those mothers, children, fathers and brothers of our service people who are over at war right now and have the chance of being killed. We are sending them there $1.3 billion short of equipment. This party is not saying that. The auditor general has said that. The Liberals should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone who thinks we are not at war does not know what is going on in this country.

The defence committee is controlled by the government. The committee recommended an increase to the budget of the Canadian forces of at least $1 billion a year. My party has consistently called for $2 billion. Even the Liberal members of the defence committee said $1 billion, which is certainly better than $250 million, and I congratulate them for that. I am sorry their Minister of National Defence and the Prime Minister did not listen to their wishes or our wishes.

We need these kinds of increases just to get into the game if we are to have a serious and credible armed forces and play a significant role in our NATO partnership. The government has given Canada the embarrassing distinction of giving the second smallest defence commitment to NATO, second only to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. This is embarrassing for most Canadians.

Canada's commitment of 1% of gross domestic product is less than half of the NATO average of 2.2%. For Canada just to match the average spending in terms of the commitment that our allies share, it would require us to double our defence budget from $10 billion to $21 billion.

What do we get from the government? We get $1.2 billion stretched out over five years. Most of that money is already accounted for by the mission costs of Operation Apollo, special anti-terrorism measures such as JTF2 and chemical and biological hazard preparedness, and emergency preparedness. By the time these funds have been allocated, there will be only $500 million left. Stretched over just five years, that is an annual base increase of just $100 million, one-twentieth or five per cent of the minimum level that experts say is necessary to bring our forces up to operational effectiveness.

All of us in the House should be embarrassed about that, because we all support the very fine forces we have. They have done a great job of peacekeeping missions around the world, and it was unbelievable what our people did in the first world war and the second world war, but nowadays the government has decreased it to 23% of what it was. Its own committee recommends $1 billion and the auditor general recommends $1.2 billion. What do we get? We get $250 million. That is not enough and I hope the government will change its mind very quickly.

Here is what David Bercuson, a distinguished military historian who has been hired by the government in the past to analyze military affairs, has to say about the budget. He says:

[The Minister of Finance's] new budget has thrown table scraps to Canada's soldiers...Over the past year or so a substantial body of evidence has emerged that Canada's military is on a long slide to virtual oblivion...The Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans' Affairs of the House of Commons unanimously pointed out that “providing the [Canadian] Forces with the capabilities they need to meet their commitments will require significant expenditures.” That was in addition to the forecast of the former auditor-general that calculated that the shortfall in defence expenditures over the next five years may be as high as $4.5-billion.

It simply cannot be that [the finance minister or the Prime Minister] is unaware of the desperate straits of the Canadian military today. Thus yesterday's budget must be taken as a strong signal that this government really has no interest in restoring, let alone increasing, Canadian military capability and that Canada's international role will continue to amount to little more than preaching “soft-power” morality and distributing food parcels--

This is not from the opposition. Those comments are from a very distinguished Canadian, a military expert. He states:

The only military capability the government excels at is camouflage...Although the 1994 defence white paper committed Canada to maintaining military forces capable of fighting alongside the best, against the best, that capability no longer exists. Canada's air force has virtually no capacity to conduct aerial combat operations. Canada's navy is so seriously undermanned it cannot put its entire destroyer fleet to sea. Canada's army is so hard pressed to find troops for overseas deployment that it is incapable of sending even a battalion-sized force (of about 1,000) anywhere for more than six months. Moreover, Canada has no way of getting troops and equipment anywhere without chartering private ships or aircraft--

Let us just think about that. President Bush calls up the Prime Minister and asks for couple of ships and couple of planeloads of people and the Prime Minister responds that he will have to call Air Canada and Princess Cruise lines to see if he can get them over. Or maybe he would try to buy those ferries in British Columbia that the socialists built and that are sitting in dry dock.

These comments are not those of the Canadian Alliance. They are those of a distinguished Canadian who understands the military. He concluded his report with this damning comment: “It has become the Canadian way to let others do the bleeding and dying for us”. That is a sad commentary on what is happening in the country right now.

The budget was supposed to be about physical security and economic security in the wake of September 11 and in the face of the imminent recession. Instead it provides us with more waste, more mismanagement and more taxation. It does nothing about the national debt, the second highest of the G-7. The Minister of Finance yesterday was bragging about how he had lowered our debt faster than any of the G-7 have. When a country has the second highest debt, it should be able to do that. I do not know what he is bragging about. We have the second highest national debt of the G-7.

[Some hon. member]

Higher than when he came to power too.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

It is much higher than when the Minister of Finance took over the country.

I said yesterday in my opening question that the Minister of Finance and Prime Minister brag about what they have done since 1993. It would not have mattered who had taken over. Probably the socialists would not have brought us into as much debt as has happened here and would have got us through the deficit. There is nothing to brag about in what they have done. The debt is now the second highest of the G-7. It was much better than that when this Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister took over.

The budget does nothing for the front line of our security service, our serving men and women in the Canadian armed forces. There is just nothing in this budget for that. The government's budget blatantly disregards the recommendation of the government's own committee to fund new priorities in security by pruning low priority spending. It ignores the invitation provided by successive auditor generals' reports to go after waste in government, especially the $16.3 billion in grants and contributions envelope. Nobody at all seems to be able to get that message straight anywhere in the government.

The budget provides nothing for farmers, one of our most important resources. It provides nothing for forestry, suffering from the government's bungling of the softwood file. Here we are, going home for Christmas with people unemployed all across Canada but particularly in British Columbia in softwood lumber. There have been many promises. I have seen the Prime Minister stand up to tell us he has talked to President Bush, talked to the people, but nothing is happening. No agreements are taking place. We have different provinces dealing with the United States and the federal government and it is a mess, yet we have people unemployed all across this country. There are tremendous problems in my province on that issue, especially at Christmastime.

Most important, I think, there is nothing for patients stuck on hospital waiting lists. It is not good enough to say that the provinces run the hospitals, that the provinces run health care. When a Liberal government brought in health care in Canada, and I give it full credit for that, it was a 50:50 deal with the provinces. My province gets about 14% covered now. This government did that. It brought down the grants to provinces to lower the deficit. It put it on the backs of the provinces so that they have to raise more taxes and put it on the backs of the municipalities. The government is to blame for what is happening in health care today. It is to blame for every person in Canada who needs a hip replacement or who needs a heart transplant and is on a waiting list. With our technology and our abilities in this country, we should not have those problems in health care. We just should not have them and there is nothing in this budget to solve those problems.

It does have money, however, for Liberal leadership candidates' pet projects: heritage money for filmmakers; health money that will not provide health care; and a mini Internet boondoggle instead of a giant Internet boondoggle.

Now the government wants to cut off debate on this budget after a mere two days. The government plans on adjourning until the new year without dealing with the amendment on the budget from the official opposition. Without deciding that question, confidence in the budget and in the government cannot be determined. The government cannot leave such a question of non-confidence to languish on the order paper until the new year. Its assumption that the House will defeat this amendment is another example of its arrogance. Presupposing a decision of the House trivializes the constitutional roles of members of parliament and of the official opposition.

The government should be reminded of an essential feature of parliamentary government. The Prime Minister and the cabinet are responsible to, or must answer to, the House of Commons as a body for their actions and must enjoy the support and confidence of a majority of members of the House to remain in office. This convention provides that if a government is defeated in the House on a confidence question, then the government is expected to resign or seek dissolution of parliament. There is a motion of non-confidence on the order paper in the name of the member for Calgary Southeast, who has done a great job on the budget debate, and it is appreciated by all members of the House, I am sure. His motion is as follows:

this House rejects the Government's Budget statement because it fails to provide adequately for the national and economic security of Canada by continuing to underfund Canada's military at the second lowest level of defence expenditure in NATO; by increasing overall spending at a rate nine times faster than the rate of growth in the economy; by failing to reallocate spending from low to high priority areas such as health care and agriculture;--

I just cannot believe there is nothing for agriculture in this budget. The amendment goes on:

--by failing to address the long-term slide in Canada's productivity and standard of living; by increasing payroll taxes in the midst of a recession; and by planning for no reduction in Canada's $547 billion debt.

The motion is a damning indictment of the government's mismanagement of our country's finances. The members of the House have a right to decide on such an important question. This question cannot be ignored.

That is why the official opposition wants to debate this concurrence motion until the government yields to the will of the House and lets the members here continue the budget debate which it has so arrogantly cut off.

I want to close with one issue in the budget because I received a number of phone calls last night on it: the new airline security charge. In my constituency, and I am sure other members will find this at Christmas, where there are short routes, this is an increase of anywhere from 25% to 50% in the cost of a flight in a small community. A flight from the city of Powell River, a community with high unemployment because of the softwood lumber issue, to Vancouver will increase from $100 to nearly $125.

I received a call last night from Pacific Coastal Airlines, which flies a lot in my riding. At Pacific, they just cannot believe this will be applied to their airline. They do not do security checks on the small flights between communities. They have never had a problem, but the charge will be applied because the government taxes everyone equally. This tax will cripple some of the small companies in the airline industry. The finance minister does not seem to have an interest in that, but when we already are in a recession we should be doing everything we can.

The government already put in a $10 fee at the Vancouver airport, which already kicks in $50 million or $60 million a year to the government just in transportation tax. The airlines already are paying for security. Why this big number when the Americans can do it for $5? Unless the finance minister is trying to tell us he expects that within a year or two $5 American will be worth $24 Canadian and he is just setting it in advance--

[An hon. member]

It almost is now.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

This is something the government will have to address. I ask all members when they go home to their constituencies to check with their constituents over the holidays. It will not be too late when we come back to vote against the budget and change that item. I think members will find that a lot of their constituents do not like this new tax.

Everywhere we turn today there are taxes. We have the GST which the government promised to eliminate and now we have taxes on airplanes. There is a highway tax on our gasoline which the government does not give back to any of the provinces. My province kicks in nearly $1 billion a year in gasoline taxes. We get back about $200,000 a year. There is the Trans-Canada Highway in British Columbia, from the mainland to the island, and for the ferries there has not been an increase in 30 years. It is shameful.

The government's priorities are wrong. It has continued its big spending programs, giving money to its friends, and the pork barreling is there, with $16 billion in grants that the auditor general said were not done properly. It is time the government realizes that it is not doing a good job. I am sure when we come back from the holidays a lot of Liberal members will have gotten that message from their people at home.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to seek unanimous consent to return to presenting reports from committees.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I beg your indulgence for a couple of moments as I raise this issue.

The RCMP has been responsible for the registration of firearms since 1934. On April 12 a briefing note to the Minister of Justice stated:

RCMP operations in Ottawa, which houses the office of the Registrar, has about 400 employees--

This is the issue. Yesterday I learned that on July 1, 2001, the responsibility for the registration of firearms had been transferred from the RCMP to the Department of Justice without the knowledge or consent of parliament. When was the government going to tell us about this major change in the delivery of the Canadian firearms registry?

When Bill C-68 was going through parliament in 1995, everyone was led to believe that the RCMP, with more than 60 years experience in running a gun registry, would continue to be in charge of the registration component of the government's firearms program. Everything in the RCMP registrar's annual reports on firearms to the solicitor general, including the most recent report tabled in the House on September 17, also has indicated it was business as usual.

I recently learned that the RCMP registrar has a new office in the Department of Justice. I am not certain if the government has the legislative authority to make this major change without the knowledge or approval of the House. I respectfully request that you, Madam Speaker, examine this point or refer it to the Speaker.

For, if the authority that parliament granted the RCMP commissioner and his registrar in the Firearms Act has been usurped in this surreptitious move, then I ask the Speaker, would this be a breach of the Firearms Act and would I do better to deal with this by raising a question of privilege? That is my question for the Speaker.

Within this context, I also have learned that at the request of the Department of Justice the force has advanced some $25 million to cover the operating costs of--

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

I gave the hon. member a lot of leeway to make his point. This is not a point of order. This is a point of debate in my opinion. If the hon. member can clarify, the Chair will allow the hon. member for Yorkton--Melville to get to his point.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, my point is that I am asking the Speaker to rule on whether this would be better dealt with as a question of privilege rather than a point of order.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The member is raising an issue that is outside the purview of the House. Therefore he can either raise it as a point of order or a question of privilege according to the procedural rules of the House.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the hon. member for Yukon. I congratulate the new leader of the reform alliance. He is the third leader to take his place with that party. Over the years the watchword of the party has been change, or turmoil if I might use another word.

We are glad to have the third leader of the party with us. I listened with interest to his debate. If one tries to analyze the things he has said, Canadians are lucky not to have an Alliance government. He made reference to statements by the auditor general concerning the fact that we have a lot to do. That is the very reason we have an auditor general. It is because we have a lot to do. Every successive government has a lot to do. We continually work to improve the functioning of government, and so we have.

I will point out some of the accomplishments of the government over the years. I detect a note of jealousy that often comes from the reform alliance. The fact is that we have ended--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Order, please. It is very difficult for the Chair to hear the hon. member if there is shouting. I know it is getting to the end of the session. I know we are all excited about getting out of here, but let us permit the hon. member to finish his 10 minutes.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Madam Speaker, with deference to my friends across the way I know that what I am saying is exciting, produces adrenalin and engenders a reaction.

We have ended 28 years of deficits in Canada. The last five budgets have been balanced budgets. We have been able to pay down debt that was accumulating at an horrendous rate before the Liberal government took over. While we have a lot to do and will always have a lot to do whatever government is in power, we have accomplished major improvements in the way the government is run.

I was concerned, though, when I heard the leader of the reform alliance talk about some of the elements that really express the view of the reform alliance. It allows me to say how lucky we are as Canadians. He talked about military spending. He obviously has not looked back at the history of the military in Canada.

Between wars Canada's military always shrunk to a corps of highly trained, elite people who could then receive the mass of volunteers who came on every time there was a conflict. It is interesting that a similar thing is happening today with the amount of recruitment taking place in the military. The military stays as a corps between wars but when we are faced with conflict Canadians respond. They respond as volunteers. We have historically not maintained a large standing army. That has not been the history of the country but now we are responding.

Another thing that concerns me about the view of the military is that in this conflict there seems to be an attitude on the part of the reform alliance that the only conflict is military conflict. It is bomb and shoot. What we are faced with at the present time will be more intelligence gathering, providing of security at borders and so on. That is where the bulk of the new money is being spent so Canadians can be safe over the long term.

Victory over terrorism will not be a military victory. There will be no victory day. Our challenge is to make terrorism in the world impotent. It is not just military. The military is a major tool but it is not the only tool we will use.

The hon. leader of the reform alliance also referred to the tax for air safety, the $24 return fee flyers will pay. I am a bit confused by the reform alliance's position in this regard. It seems to have moved away from its historic position on user pay.

I am not sure what percentage of Canadians fly, but if I buy an aircraft ticket I feel comfortable paying that $24. I do not think I should impose a share of it on someone who seldom or never flies or who takes the train or drives a car. Is that fair?

The member suggested we talk to some of our constituents. I have done that already. The $24 imposition for security in the air is generally accepted in the riding I have the honour to serve. Perhaps the hon. member should go back and talk to his constituents over the Christmas season. He will probably get an idea of exactly how they feel.

It is the function of the official opposition to criticize where criticism is due. The government accepts that. Today in the member's speech there was a rather chicken little approach of the sky is falling to virtually everything the reform alliance is critical about. It is a function of opposition to cherry-pick issues. It is also a function of opposition not to give credit where credit is due. We can accept that.

Overall this has been a balanced and fair budget. As members read the budget they will see that we have gone on to areas of endeavour other than just security. That means the government is not giving in to terrorism. We will not throw up our hands in defeat. We are getting on with business as usual.

This year and next year the country will continue to function the way it did before: free of deficit. We will be able to move into new areas of endeavour. That is the function of a forward looking Liberal government.

I was particularly pleased there was something left in the budget for environmental enhancement and supporting the development of renewable energy. It is encouraging that we have started down this road. I hope that in my tenure as a member of the House it will become a major thrust of the Government of Canada.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks although he was stretching for relevance at times. He seems to have prided himself on the notion that there is not a deficit in the budget or in future years as presented in the budget.

Perhaps my hon. friend is not familiar with the basic rules of accounting. If he would care to examine the table at page 24 of the principal budget document he would find there is a deficit in the next fiscal year of 2002-03 if we use anything like the standard accounting practices enforced by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, the auditors general of Canada or the United States congress.

For instance, the finance minister has moved $2 billion of revenue from the current fiscal year into the future fiscal year to manufacture an ostensible surplus where there is an actual deficit. He also creates two new foundations, the likes of which have been repeatedly condemned by successive auditors general for lacking parliamentary accountability and scrutiny.

The budget virtually eliminates the prudence and contingency funds which the finance minister said would never be used to direct program spending. He told me that in the House last May. Now he will be using what is left in the contingency reserve to finance new program expenditures.

How can the member claim that this is a balanced budget or that it meets anything like basic transparency or accounting standards? How can he claim that it is a responsible fiscal approach when the finance minister, according to the Toronto-Dominion Bank, Merrill Lynch and other major economists, is taking us back into deficit?

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will defer to my hon. friend's expertise in accounting because I am not an accountant and would not pretend to be. However if ever there was a contingency it was September 11. I hope he recognizes that.