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--