Debates of Dec. 4th, 2001

Supply

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do think it is right for the government in B.C. to be build those ferries. It should also be noted that there has been a reduction in coastal defence vessels from 12 to 6. The coast guard needs ships, ferries, frigates and whatever and they should be built right now in Canada.

This government has decided to spend $1.2 billion more to buy ships from another country. What do the other countries do? They have sweatshops in which the men and women work for perhaps $1.50 an hour. We do not stand for sweatshops. What we stand for is dignity for every man, woman and child in this country. That is what I believe in.

We were so proud when we built those frigates. The admiral would come when we launched one of them, and the men and women were so proud of what they had done. The admiral would be present at every launch and would praise the men and women at the shipyard in Quebec and the men and women at our shipyard.

How can we look ourselves in the face now when we see what has happened to our navy? Look at it.

When it comes to illegal immigrants out west, we need to have the ships for the coast guard and for our navy. We need to put our men and women back to work. Let us make them a top priority.

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. member for Saint John. Her speeches are always delivered with such enthusiasm.

I wish to congratulate her on her ongoing interest and perseverance in the area of shipbuilding. I share her concerns. Unfortunately, the Saint John shipyards are closed, and Davie Industries is in dire financial straits, having been put under the protection of the Bankruptcy Act. I share her ongoing concerns in this area.

After many representations to him, the Minister of Industry has decided to do a little something. It was a step in the right direction, but very little money was involved.

I would like to ask the hon. member for some comments. She referred to the very low wages of Chinese and Korean shipyard workers. How can it be, then, that Canadian shipbuilders I will not take the time to list—but if the hon. member has time she can look them all up—who are aware of the situation, who are aware of the need for an improved Canadian fleet, are getting their ships built in China or Korea while thousands of shipyard workers here are unemployed?

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, a major concern of ours is that the government is going to foreign countries to buy vessels. That is what has happened to our shipyards. Ships are not being built in Canada. The government's priorities are all mixed up. It does not see the priorities.

When I asked the government why it was doing this, the reply I received from one of the ministers was that we were into high technology these days. Ship building is high technology. The government needs to take a second look. The Minister of Industry had better get his priorities straight right away and get our shipbuilders back to work.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, one of the great ridings in western Canada.

I really hesitate to stand after the flamboyant member who just spoke. I do not have the dress for it. She had a really good seasonal costume and I am dressed so plainly I feel embarrassed standing up after her. However, we will deal with it the best that we can.

I would also like to say that I was shocked to hear the parliamentary secretary for finance say that he was surprised that we would use this supply day for this motion. I need to chide him. That is what supply is about. Supply is the granting of money from the taxpayers of the country to the government so that it can carry on with the business of the country. When we have supply days it really has to do with issues that are meant to hold the government accountable, particularly in the area of supply. For him to be shocked at this is rather surprising.

I was thinking about what to say this morning and I recall that a number of years ago one of my friends told me that I should buy some shares in a company, which I will not name here. He told me I needed to buy those shares. They were only $6.50 and he told me to mortgage my house as they could only go up. About a month later I saw him again and told him I was glad I did not take his advice because the shares were down to $6.20. His response was surprising. He said that if they were a good buy at $6.50, then I should be tripping over myself running down to buy them at $6.20 because then they were really a good buy.

I declined his advice because I did not like the direction in which those shares were going. He said it was an anomaly, that it would turn around and I could be rich if I bought $50,000 or $60,000 worth of shares in that company. I never had any kind of money anywhere near that, but hat is how he spoke. A year later those shares were selling at $18. I guess I missed a glorious opportunity because I did not take advice from a guy who probably knew a little more about it than I did.

Part of my speech today will be a bit of a chastisement to the government for a wasted opportunity. In fact I would call it a squandered opportunity over the last eight years. The Liberals took over when the country and in fact the world were rebounding from serious economic problems. They took over from some changes such as free trade that had been brought into place, which really helped them immensely despite the fact that when they were on the opposition side in the House they railed against free trade.

All members in the House know that our trade with our trading partners has a major positive impact on our present well-being in the country, but the Liberals were against it. Now of course every once in a while the finance minister stands up on this, and I am sure we will hear a great deal of gloating when he presents his budget speech a week from yesterday. It will be about how wonderful the government is, how it did all this stuff. I dread saying this, but I believe that it happened primarily despite the fact that the Liberals were in charge. These things happened and I think we could have done so much better. That is where the squandered opportunity comes in.

I want to focus on one of the parts of the motion today and that is the issue of debt. The government wastes money and has increased its spending way beyond its expectations. It is just not right to have done that. During those years of surpluses that we have had in the last four or five years, I sincerely wish that the government would have utilized more of those unexpected resources to pay down the debt.

There is no better time to reduce indebtedness than when one is in a good fiscal situation. That is when we should reduce the debt. We had that opportunity and the government squandered it. For the record, I am sure that the government will talk about reducing the debt and will say that it has been reduced by $36 billion. That is true, since the peak to which the government brought it. It is down by $36 billion.

I have said before that I regret the fact I cannot use an overhead projector to show some graphs. Perhaps members and those watching on television could picture a graph showing debt going up and up. Finally in about 1997 it levelled off and the debt started to come down. The amount of debt is still approximately $49 billion more than when the government first took office. It is incredible that it has added all this debt. Sure, it brought the debt down in recent times but it could have done so much more.

There is another thing that comes into play here and I think it is really important. We talk about government debt and about the fact that children born nowadays have such a huge debt. I remember our former leader, the member for Calgary Southwest, using this example in his speech. He used to say that nowadays when babies are born, instead of the doctor slapping them on the back to get them to cry all the doctor does is hold them up by the heels and say “You owe us $17,000” and the babies start crying automatically. Obviously they would start to cry. We are doing our young people a huge disservice by bringing them into the world carrying a burden of debt. The fact that our government has been passive in the last five or six years when we had an opportunity to reduce that debt load substantially is a great affront to them.

Then what do we do to our young people? We add to their debt. When they get to go to university we give them student loans galore and tell them they had better pay them back. Other people can get clear of bankruptcy proceedings in three years, but not our students. We nail them for 10 years and make sure they pay back their loans.

I am not against paying back debt, but we load them down with debt instead of arranging affairs so that they can get their education and come out, as we did in our generation, with no or little debt. They now have huge debts. Then what happens? Finally they get a job and the rate of taxation in the country is so high at all levels of government that the poor wage earner gets to keep half of what he or she earns. This is incredible. In the United States people work from January 1 to the first week in May for the government and after that the their income is for themselves and their families. In Canada it is the full half-year. We have Canada Day on July 1. We should celebrate that we finally on that date have paid our taxes for the year. As a result Canadians are driven into personal debt. They are born with debt, we increase their debt while they are in school and when they finally get a job their disposable income is so low that they drive themselves into debt.

I have picked up a few statistics and have found that we now have in Canada an average household debt of some $53,000, compared to only $42,000 in 1990. Because of our huge tax loads and disposable incomes that are so low, people have to borrow to live. In the end they are throwing themselves into the bankruptcy courts in huge numbers and into the tax courts in some cases. That ought not to be. Meanwhile, personal savings are down by some 70% in the last 10 years. I was intrigued to see that Canadians, in just Visa and MasterCard alone, collectively have $110 billion dollars of debt. Why? Because they do not have disposable income.

In conclusion, the government must reduce the debt. That would allow the government to reduce taxes and give Canadians more take home pay. Everybody would be a lot better off.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of the hon. member. I noted particularly his comments about the reduction in debt over the past few years and his view that this was a very small, modest paying down of the debt.

It strikes me that we should consider the fact that the government has paid down the debt by $37 billion. It has reduced the debt by that much. In 1993 who in the country would have believed it? If the Liberal Party in its campaign had said it would not only balance the books, reduce the deficit and eliminate it but it would also pay down the debt by $37 billion over the next seven or eight years, people would have laughed. They would have laughed uproariously, but in fact what has happened is exactly that.

The hon. member fails to recognize the achievement of the government in reducing the debt by that much, which is a remarkable achievement in view of the fact that to start with the government was faced with a situation of near bankruptcy, a incredibly terrible situation. It seems to me that the member is ignoring that reality.

What really interests me is the question of how the Alliance has lost its priorities. I realize that the view of Alliance members is that they should represent only their own ridings. The question is, how does a party broaden its support base if it does not reconcile the views of the rest of the country? I am not suggesting I am confident that the member is absolutely certain of what his riding's view is, but I will give him that for the moment. How does the member broaden that base if he does not reconcile the views of the rest of the country?

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when I speak of debt from birth to death in this country that comprises pretty well every citizen of the country, so I am not concerned about not having that appeal to people right across the country.

The parliamentary secretary talks about the debt reduction. By the way, I should also take a moment here to make a correction. I think I said the debt is now $49 billion more than when the Liberals took office. I was in error. It is just a little less than $40 billion. It is $39 billion, so I made a little error in my mental arithmetic on the run and my apologies for that. That does not happen often, but it did this time.

The member wants me to praise him for reducing the debt. In fact, I reluctantly do so. I am glad that the Liberals have stopped increasing it. I am glad that they did not invent more ways of spending money. They invented enough. I applaud them for at least beginning to reduce the debt.

For the parliamentary secretary to say that they ought to get a lot of credit for this is like me telling you, Mr. Speaker, or anybody else, that at Christmastime I will lose 20 pounds. What I will not say is that at the same time I will gain 30. What I will do is gain a little, lose a little, gain a little and lose a little, and the sum of my losses will be 20 pounds. I guarantee it. In total I will have gained 10 pounds because I gained 30 while I lost 20.

This is what the government has done. I pointed out that in my speech. It started at $508 billion. First, it increased the debt by $75 billion. Now it has reduced it by $36 billion and it wants us to cheer. Of course we will cheer for the government reducing it to $36 billion, but it is not even back to where it started in 1993.

It is also very important for me to say, yes, let us keep on that track. There is a lot of money that the government could have had. Rather, it chose to spend. I believe that collectively it has overshot its own spending projections. If we add up the amount by which it has overspent each budget since it has taken power, it adds up to $20 billion or $30 billion. That should have been used to reduce the debt.

I find it interesting that the $36 billion by which the debt is down from its peak is exactly equal to the amount of cumulative overpayments in the EI fund. In other words, the government has managed to squander all of the other surpluses, or whatever. I do not know what the government is doing with them. In just the EI fund alone the surpluses have paid for the debt reduction and I think that is the wrong source from which to take money for that.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Elk Island for once again allowing me to speak and for giving an eloquent performance with constructive suggestions. I will try to be part of that if I can.

The last 10 years since the Liberal government came to power have been labelled the decade of drift for Canada. Perhaps the worst case of that is the situation with our economy. As a nation we are punching so far below our weight that we are sliding further and further down the OECD levels. This is not necessary. As a country we have much greater potential than we have been displaying.

The government has proposed a budget. The only reason it has done so is that the events of September 11 have forced it to put a budget on the table. It might be shocking for Canadians to know that while our unemployment rates have gone up and our dollar, our economy and our competitiveness with respect to other countries have been sliding, the government has been doing nothing.

This has been an era of inaction. The inaction of the government has compromised every person in the country today. The government's agenda has been focused on its polls and that is it. It does not matter what is happening in the country. The government wants to know what its polls are saying. We have seen an agenda for inaction which is the antithesis of innovation, and as a result our competitiveness has been sliding.

As a member of the Canadian Alliance I will offer some of the solutions my party has been putting forth since 1993 to get Canada back in the game, make our country competitive and move us forward. Our solutions would ensure every Canadian could share the wealth and be gainfully employed. They would ensure better social programs, put us on a sustainable footing and make Canada a stronger and better country for all.

We not only need to have balanced budgets. We need to invest in the infrastructure required to be competitive. As my colleague from Elk Island mentioned, the tax structure we have today is choking off the private sector in ways we cannot imagine. The rates are too high and payroll taxes are too high. They absolutely must be reduced. EI premiums can and must be reduced because they are being used as a tax on the private sector.

Personal taxes must decline. Above all else they hurt those in the middle and lower classes. They are the ones hurt most by the government's inaction.

We need investment in research and development. We must allow the private sector to engage in the research and development required for it to compete with countries all over the world. It cannot do that with the high tax rates we have today.

We must reform and simplify our tax system. My party has been proposing a flat tax rate for years. Why do we have the complex tax system we have today where people need a chartered accountant or CGA to do their taxes? It is not necessary. Corporate and personal taxes need to be reduced as do the innovation crushing capital tax structures we have today.

EI premiums should be reduced. CPP premiums are reaching such high levels that in the next few years they will consume 20% to 30% of people's income. The reason is that today's CPP is completely unsustainable. The government knows this full well.

When the Liberal government of the day brought in the CPP it knew full well it would be unsustainable in the future. There will come a time when the system will break apart because it cannot maintain the current structure. As a result many low income seniors will be crushed.

Members of the Liberal Party over there are shaking their heads and saying no. However the architects of the CPP could tell us then and hon. members can tell us today that the CPP is unsustainable.

If the government does not act today to reform the CPP system, tens of thousands of innocent and impoverished low income seniors will be unnecessarily hurt. They will be thrown out on the street because they will not have the money to meet their basic needs. That crime will be on the shoulders of the Liberal government.

We in the Canadian Alliance Party have put forth solutions to save the CPP system so all Canadians, particularly low income seniors, can have a pension on which they can survive. Are we seeing that? No, we are not. We have a system today where rules and regulations are choking off our private sector.

I propose that for every rule and regulation the government proposes in the future two rules and regulations be removed from the books. That is what we are doing in British Columbia. The B.C. government said it would start shaving off a third of all the rules and regulations in its province. The federal government never does this. We need to remove a good chunk of the rules and regulations that are choking the private sector.

Our spending priorities should be education, infrastructure and research and development, not government programs to curry favour with the electorate. The government uses taxpayer money to buy votes and curry favour with the electorate. It takes $10 from the taxpayer and gives $4 back. It does this strategically to ensure it is re-elected.

The public does not buy this any more. As hon. members know, in previous times the government has been able to win over the public all over the country by virtue of giving out government largess. The public is now saying it will not give money to the government unless it spends the money wisely, which is the responsibility of any responsible government. It had better start doing it quickly.

In this decade of drift we have seen a government that accepts mediocrity and inaction. It accepts less than what we can be. It will accept a 50 cent dollar and higher unemployment rates. Why does this have to be? Why is it happening? That is the more interesting question. The reason it is happening is that we do not live in a democracy. If we think for a moment that cabinet controls what is going on in the country we are sadly mistaken.

It is not cabinet that controls what goes on. There are many fine cabinet ministers and backbench members in the government who are innovative and would like to exercise their skills, talents and abilities for the public good, but they cannot. The Prime Minister's Office tells them what to do, what to say, when to say it and how to say it. If they step out of line they know they will be turfed. They will be turfed not to the fifth row but to the sixth row if there were one. Their political careers would be over.

That is not fair. It is not only unfair to good, hardworking members on the government side and members of all political parties. It is unfair to the Canadian public. The public demands better. It demands a government that will use the best minds within its party and the House, that will find the best ideas from around the country and that will apply those ideas to the problems of the nation in a timely fashion.

All we have seen since 1993 is a government of inaction and mediocrity that is obsessed with polls and accepts less than what we can be. On one level we can understand that. Why change when one is so high in the polls? However what is the purpose of power unless one is willing to use it for the public good? Why have it? Why be in that position unless one is willing to use the good graces of the offices one has taken over for the public good?

The Canadian public will not tolerate this much longer. As an opposition party, first as the Reform Party and then as the Alliance Party, we have for years been offering constructive solutions to deal with the big problems affecting Canadians. Members of all political parties have been doing so.

The upcoming budget pressured by the events of September 11 will demonstrate that the government has been inactive. It has been willing to sleepwalk into a recession rather than act proactively to head it off in advance. The public sees that. The opposition ranks see that.

We in my party have offered constructive solutions. The government's obligation is to take our solutions and those from its own side and act on them. If it does not act on them people will be hurt and it will be on the government's shoulders.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca is talking nonsense. I have been a member of the government backbenches for the last eight years and I have never received a call from the PMO except to ask for my advice. I have never been told not to say anything.

I hope the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca stays for my speech which will immediately follow his questions and comments because he will see an example of a government backbencher attacking government programs in order to effect change, so there is no question on this side. We are not muzzled by the Prime Minister's Office or anyone else.

Let me ask the member a question. One of the themes that has been coming through the Canadian Alliance speeches is this idea that in order to address the problem of the economic recession and to address the problem of a high government debt the only solution they seem to have is to cut taxes, but surely cutting taxes is cutting revenues which is a contradiction if we want to reduce the debt when we need revenues.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will address a number of issues. The good member has made many constructive suggestions and taken his government to task, but he sits in the farthest corner of the House one possibly could imagine. That is sad because he is a hardworking member of parliament who provides many constructive suggestions in the House. My case in point is taken.

The issue of taxes is interesting. Once upon a time in the era of Brian Mulroney a government decided to lower taxes. In that brief period government revenues went up. If we lower taxes we lower the burden on the private and public sectors. Companies then have money for innovation and research and can compete and invest in their companies. Companies expand and when they expand they generate moneys. Because those moneys are taxed, albeit at a lower level, more moneys come into the public coffers.

The proof of the pudding is if we look at any country that has lowered its tax rates. We will find government revenues have gone up because the private sector has expanded, the economy is booming and there is a larger amount of money to tax.

High tax rates choke off the private sector and damage social programs. We need only look at the bastions of socialism in northern Europe. When they had high taxes their private sectors were compromised. When their tax rates were lower they had more government revenues and their social programs were put on higher levels.

One small point I neglected to address concerns the hardworking public service. The government needs to give the public service free reign and task it to determine how much money it is spending, where it is spending it, what its objectives are and whether it is meeting them.

It is shocking to ask government workers and bureaucrats responsible for government programs how much money they are spending, where they are spending it, what their objectives are and whether they are being met. Quite often the last questions cannot be answered. They do not know what their objectives are and often cannot answer whether they are being met.

The last part of that, and one of the government members had a great suggestion along these lines, is that we should give incentives to the public service. What if we told government workers that if they articulated and met their objectives and saved money a part of the savings would go to the workers and their bureaucracy as a reward for their good and hard work?

The workers would be able to apply their many talents and skills to the public good. Too often the hardworking and intelligent people in the public sector cannot use their talents to their maximum abilities. If we introduced an incentive program more and more of their abilities could be used for the public good. We would have a streamlined and more effective public service that could be an innovative tiger within the country.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, with the one minute I have remaining I will put away the comments I wanted to make. I will instead ask the hon. member if he was aware of the comments of his colleague from Elk Island regarding tax freedom day as calculated by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Does the hon. member realize there used to be a corporate tax freedom day which had to be cancelled because it got in the way of New Year's Eve celebrations? They were merging on the same hour of the same day.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the cold hard reality is that the corporate sector pays the bulk of taxes in the country. If we have high tax rates for the corporate sector companies will leave Canada and move to countries with lower tax rates.

What we need are fair taxes, fewer loopholes and a system that enables our private sector to compete. High tax rates kill jobs, cause unemployment and drive companies out of Canada. Low taxes do the converse.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to share my time with the member for Ancaster--Dundas--Flamborough--Aldershot which is probably the longest name for a riding I have ever heard.

Opposition parties in the debate today are suggesting a number of measures which we should put in our budget to be delivered in the House next week. Needless to say, it would not be a wise move on my part to try to scoop the Minister of Finance, but let me say that we have initiated one of the most consultative processes for budget making that the world has ever seen by having the finance committee of the House of Commons travel to every corner of Canada to listen to Canadians in their home towns and here in Ottawa. By doing this, the making of a budget is no longer restricted to only those who have privileged access to the inner sanctums. This is a great innovation and one which does make for democratic, productive budget making.

If what we have seen in the past is any guide as to what might be in next Monday's budget, perhaps we could look at what we have done. We have to look at where we are today in the context of a global economic slowdown and that slowdown was exacerbated by the tragic events of September 11.

We know we are in an economic downturn, but most economists are predicting that we will come out of this downturn next year, perhaps in the second half and will have good growth the year following that. We do not like this slowdown but we have had 10 years of good growth and there are economic cycles which hit us. This one unfortunately was exacerbated by the tragic events of September 11.

What measures have we taken in the past that are assisting us through this challenging period? We have managed our economy and our fiscal policy in such a way that we have kept inflationary pressures down and the Bank of Canada has been able to make major cuts in our interest rates, which is very stimulative. Today in spite of these major cuts, we see an inflation rate at 1.9%, midway in our monetary band. In addition, since we have been in surplus we have been able to make major tax cuts. In terms of personal income taxes, it is 27% and 35% for families with children.

Looking at what the government has done in terms of corporate taxes, it has made major cuts which, when they are fully implemented combined with the provinces in a couple of years, will give a company in Ontario or Alberta a top corporate tax rate of 30%. I ask members to compare that to the rates in the United States, for example, 36% in Michigan, 40% in New York and 41% in California. That is the type of competitive edge our corporations and entrepreneurs are getting. That is why we have seen profit centers for North America shift to Canada.

In terms of debt, we have been able to go from a high of 71% of GDP down to less than 50% today. We have made major debt paydowns of over $35 billion which have saved the Government of Canada $2.5 billion a year in interest costs alone.

At the same time, we have not been a one track party. We have been able to make major strategic investments in health care, innovation, research and development, and infrastructure. Look at our last infrastructure program of $2 billion mainly for green projects and $600 million of that going toward highway infrastructure, which will leverage to at least three times that when the provinces, municipalities and the private sector participate.

What type of stimulus have we created that is going to see us, and is seeing us, through these challenging times and which will help our economy with the rebound that will surely come next year?

Our tax cuts this year alone amount to a stimulus of over $17 billion. In addition, we have made strategic investments, for example, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation; Genome Canada; the Atlantic investment partnership; increased equalization; increased transfers for health care. Those increases amount to an added $7 billion of stimulus.

Then we look at what our monetary policy has done. The interest rate cuts that we have been able to bring about this year without causing inflation are estimated by the chief economist for Merrill Lynch Canada to have produced savings on consumer debt in Canada of $7 billion this year and to mortgagors in Canada savings of another $4 billion this year. When we look at the total stimulation that we have put into the economy this year, $17 billion in tax cuts, $7 billion in strategic investments, and accepting what Merrill Lynch said, another $11 billion in savings to consumers and to mortgage holders, there is a stimulus of $35 billion, well over 3% of GDP.

How have we done it? We have done it through measures which are sustainable because we are balancing, and have balanced, our budgets. We have done this by a very difficult process of controlling spending.

When we took office our spending was at 16.2% of GDP. At the end of last year it was at 11.3% of GDP. Any new expenditures we have made this year have been mainly in the areas of health care and security measures.

The budget is certainly going to be one of the most difficult the minister has ever had to make. It is much easier to have an economic blueprint when the global economy is expanding and when revenues are going up.The one thing I promise, apart from a very balanced and responsible, fiscally prudent budget, is that it will give a full, fair and realistic accounting. It will clearly spell out the steps we have taken and the steps we will take to ensure that we have a strong, prosperous future.

The tragic events of September 11 challenge all of us, but I assure everyone that the government will rise to those challenges.

[Howard Hilstrom, Canadian Alliance, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when I look around at these wonderful walls in the House of Commons, all I see in printing are the words “impôt”, which I suppose is French, and “tax” in English. That is exactly what the government has done.

Our current budget is $173 billion, give or take a few hundred million. I would like to know what the budget was in 1993, the first budget year for the Liberal government and what the difference is. What increase in taxes and revenues has the government had since 1993? Could the secretary of state compare those two figures?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when we took office in 1993, program spending was $120 billion. That is all of the government spending, apart from interest on the debt. At the end of last year, our program spending was at $119.3 billion, which is $700 million lower than when we took office. This is part of the great economic success that we have had in managing our economy.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the secretary of state did not mention anything about EI even though it forms a part of today's opposition day motion. The opposition day motion calls for a reduction in premiums. I think the secretary of state knows that we would advocate an increase on the benefit side so that more people would be eligible.

I would like him to comment on the layoffs in the hospitality industry. In the province of Ontario, the prediction is that over 80% of all the employees in the hospitality industry in downtown Toronto will be laid off this winter and less than 15% of them will qualify for EI benefits.

Would the hon. secretary of state admit that the system is not working as it should for unemployed Canadians?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the employment insurance program we have made major changes to it.

One of the most important and fundamental changes we made was that people who were working for shorter periods of time could accumulate employment insurance benefits. That is something which is going to help ease the burden for those who may lose their jobs at this particular time.

In terms of actual job losses, I am not taking credit for this but looking realistically at what has happened, one of the most exciting things that has happened since we started to put this nation's finances in order has been the huge increase in the number of jobs. Over two million new jobs have been created by the private sector here in Canada. This is critical because the best social program is a job.

The member is right in that we have seen the rates go up slightly from a low of 6.8%. The increased benefits that are available under the EI program are helpful to those people who have lost their jobs. Whenever anyone loses a job, it is the most difficult thing that anyone anywhere has to face because it does have human consequences.

The member mentioned the EI premiums. When we took office in 1993, the premiums were at $3.07 and were heading toward $3.30. They have come down every year since then, saving employers and contributors to that fund a total of $6.8 billion a year. I do not take a back seat to anyone when it comes to what our government has done to cut employment insurance premiums.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca suggested in his speech that government backbenchers were afraid to utter constructive criticisms of their own government programs. Not so. Many, many backbench MPs have constructive suggestions for the government. The member from Esquimalt when I challenged him on that suggested that I, who is well known for making constructive criticisms of government programs, was relegated to this corner of the House as some sort of punishment.

Well, I wish to reassure all members of the House of Commons that I am over in this corner of the House of Commons in order to give me more speaking room, in order to speak to the government members, to speak to the opposition members and to speak to even the Conservative members in the corner here. I consider my place in the House of Commons, the location of my seat, an honour. Now I will proceed to criticize a government program.

I really actually appreciate the opportunity this opposition motion does afford those in the House who monitor various government programs and have reservations about them. The program that most disturbs me and will be the main focus of my remarks is the non-insured health benefits program run by Health Canada for Canada's aboriginals, all those covered by the Indian Act.

This is a program that now costs the government treasury $578 million a year. It is a program that is not mandated in legislation whatsoever. It comes out of the blue. It was inherited from the previous Conservative government and it was designed to provide Canada's aboriginal citizens with free drugs and free vision care equipment like sunglasses and eyeglasses. It was designed to give free transportation to aboriginals.

The program was introduced by the former Conservative government under Brian Mulroney. At about the same time, a couple of years after that same government brought in a bill called Bill C-31, which extended Indian status extensively. It extended it mainly to women who had married non-Indians and had moved off the reserve. Consequently over the last 15 years there has been a tremendous expansion of people who qualify as aboriginals for the various programs that exist for aboriginals. This applies to the non-insured health benefits program, so what we have is a program that began costing the government a couple of hundred million, has risen exponentially and now costs $578 million a year.

The difficulty is it is a program that is based exclusively on race. It is not based on the economic disadvantage of individuals. It is not based on whether they are on reserve or off reserve. It is not based on income. One of the problems is that an untold amount of money in that program is going to people who have their Indian cards who are taking advantage of the program and have no need to take advantage of the program.

I know of at least one instance where the individual is earning about $300,000 a year and yet he qualifies for the program. That is a very extreme example, but in Canada's urban centres there are literally tens of thousands of individuals who qualify for the free drugs which run into seven million prescriptions a year. There are stories where they go out and their kids can get free sunglasses and so on and so forth.

This is a classic case where parliament needs to intervene and draw parameters around this program focusing on people who are in need rather than simply on race. I would suggest that the savings could be a couple of hundred million dollars.

We have heard a lot from the other side on how in this time of recession we should be doing everything we can to cut spending and lower taxes, but I submit that we have not had a lot of constructive suggestions. I would suggest that if the government were to come into the non-insured health benefits program, put it under legislation finally and make it income relevant as it should be directed to those in need, there would be a tremendous saving and I think there would be a tremendous benefit to the people involved as well.

The other program that I am very critical of that I wish the finance minister would pay attention to is in the context of Canada's national debt. The member for Elk Island spoke considerably on this. My disappointment is that it is certainly true we have reduced the debt by $36 billion, but looking at the public accounts and looking at the report of the auditor general we could have reduced that debt by another $7 billion. We can still reduce it by $3 billion or $4 billion just like that. The way is to take the money back from the foundations, the nine foundations that were set up with government funds to undertake various programs.

For instance, there is about $3 billion locked up in the Canada foundation for innovation. I have no problem with the idea behind this foundation, which is to try to improve Canada's technological competitiveness, but it is an evasion of public responsibility when taxpayer dollars are given to an arm's length organization that then invests it. Rather than having a foundation invest taxpayer dollars, it should have been reduced from the debt because what you have, Mr. Speaker, is $7 billion in various investments in these arm's length foundations that would actually, if the money had been held back until needed, have reduced the debt by some $7 billion.

I think the finance department and the finance minister should examine the whole philosophy about setting up things like the millennium scholarship fund which is another one of these foundations that accounts for $2.4 billion. The millennium scholarship fund is an excellent program. I think it is excellent but it should be a charge as you go, not as a charge to the future. The final difficulty, Mr. Speaker, is of course if you put the money out to foundations and they invest it of course they become susceptible to what happens in the markets.

I have the annual report before me of the Canada foundation for innovation, but I regret I cannot get enough information from it to determine whether the billion or so dollars that it invested in various market instruments had gained or lost money. That is precisely the point: if it had been a debt reduction it would have meant that the Government of Canada would not be borrowing.

You see what happens, Mr. Speaker. By giving it to an arm's length foundation, $7 billion to a foundation, it means the government has to continue to borrow. I do not think this is acceptable, but I think $7 billion is a worthy saving.

I thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank members of the opposition for giving me the opportunity to suggest to the government these two areas that I think it could address. I know it is too late for the budget remarks that are coming up very shortly, but to me it is parliament that is responsible for spending taxpayer money. It is parliament that should be accountable. I deplore situations where there is a $578 million program that is not legislated by parliament that is dispensing that amount of money. I deplore also where we offload our responsibilities to arm's length organizations when we should keep the money for our own purposes to keep the debt down and pay for these programs as we go.

[Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Liberal, Secretary of State (Children and Youth)]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to get some background information from my hon. colleague who takes great pride in the position he takes on many issues, some of which are controversial and sometimes unfounded.

I would like the hon. member to correct the assumption regarding these agreements with card carrying aboriginal people like myself. Many of them pay taxes, have always paid taxes and have not had the benefit of a status card. I was adopted and lost my status card because the family that adopted me was not status. I paid my way through university. I paid for everything and I have never reclaimed those expenses. Those arrangements are treaty arrangements. I would like my colleague to speak to that.

There is an assumption or at least an intonation that aboriginal people are irresponsible or the government is irresponsible in having struck those agreements. I have no issue with accountability, but I have an issue with the way in which this is expressed. It makes a target out of aboriginal people and I would like him to set correctly the historical basis on which these agreements, programs and services were put in place.

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

Mr. Speaker, why the secretary of state actually defends the point. She makes $132,000 plus, and she is entirely eligible to have her drugs free and to have whatever is available in the non-insured health benefits program. I grant she may not do it. As a matter of fact I am sure she does not do it but there are many people in urban settings who do.

The program was never ever designed for people in urban communities. It was intended for aboriginals, Indians on reserves. It was primarily a program not based on and it was never intended in my view to be simply based on race. All I am suggesting is that the program should be re-examined. It should be an object of legislation and should be focused on those in need.

[Howard Hilstrom, Canadian Alliance, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is refreshing to hear some real debate in the House coming from the government side. I would encourage more of it.

Dealing with today's Canadian Alliance supply day motion, we hear members of the Liberal Party, the NDP in particular, the Bloc, and of course the PC/DR, say that the Canadian Alliance wants to cut this, cut that and cut spending. That is what say. That is what they are putting across. Let us examine the facts. They may not want to hear this but let us look at the facts.

We are saying precisely that the government should look at the existing budget and where it can reallocate moneys from to put into areas of higher priority spending. I have to refer to the supply day motion itself which states precisely that in the opinion of the House, the upcoming budget should reallocate--and I will say that again, reallocate--financial resources from wasteful low and falling priorities into higher need areas. That is exactly what the motion is today. It then goes on to talk about examples. The examples given of course are not all inclusive. We are talking about the whole range of federal government programs and initiatives as to where to reallocate from within the existing budget.

Earlier I asked the secretary of state about government budgets. I think he gave me an answer to the effect that the government actually takes in less money now than it did in 1993. I will have to go over Hansard to see just how he figured that out. My understanding is that this year it is a $173 billion budget. I know for sure that is not what it was in 1993.

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my 20 minutes with the hon. member for Surrey Central.

I would like to deal with another issue that came up today, that of agriculture. Agriculture is absolutely vital to the country. It is a major part of our economy. I point out that of Canada's top five industries, one of them is agriculture. It accounts for about 8.5% of the GDP. Between $95 billion and $105 billion is generated by the agriculture industry which employs approximately two million Canadians. It is very much a part of today's supply day debate.

I would like to talk about what the Canadian Alliance has done since the 2000 election in regard to this major part of our economy and what the government should be looking at in terms of reallocating resources from other low priority areas into agriculture.

As I go over this, members will see there was a Canadian Alliance votable supply day motion where we asked all parties including the government to vote to give an additional $400 million to Canadian farmers. That motion was defeated. That was part of the Canadian Alliance initiative of reallocating resources from lower priority areas. Agriculture, as evidenced by that, is one of our high priority areas. We talk about agriculture.

The New Democrats are probably the worst ones for trying to compare themselves to others. I know that they have additional speakers coming up and I will give them something to use for comparison.

On December 13, 2000, the first day that Alliance MPs were back in Ottawa, our leader along with myself and other agriculture critics sent a letter to the Prime Minister demanding help for farmers before Christmas of that year.

January 31 was the first question period for this session of parliament. We asked questions regarding an immediate cash injection for farmers during that first question period. Our leader was the first opposition leader to ask questions on agriculture in the House of Commons after the federal election. Where was the NDP leader at that time when it came to asking questions?

Since the opening of the 37th Parliament, which we are in right now, we have delivered over 100 statements and questions on agriculture in the House. Agriculture is one of the top five issues the Canadian Alliance has raised since coming here after the election in November 2000.

Our questions in the House have ranged over the whole area of agriculture topics. Of course, agriculture being an economic force in the country, they all had to do with this very supply day motion. We have spoken about and debated the ongoing farm income crisis. This includes improvements to the safety nets. We have suggested ideas with regard to NISA. There is the need for an additional $500 million. Of course our caucus voted for our finance critic to actually advance this as one of the areas for reallocation of moneys from lower priority areas in today's debate.

The Liberal backdoor attempts to circumvent supply management tariffs is another issue we have raised in question period. All of this is in Hansard .

We have raised the foot and mouth crisis. We have also raised the drought issue which was very predominant across the country but particularly in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta where absolutely nothing grew when there was no rain. We have supported the organic farmers.

We have noted also that there is Liberal hypocrisy in delivering help to large companies fighting foreign subsidies, like Bombardier, but at the same time ignoring agriculture. We have noted the impact on farmers of the cruelty to animals legislation if it passes this House. I can only encourage all members to oppose this cruelty to animals legislation at this time.

We have raised the U.S. ban on P.E.I. potatoes, which is still hurting those farmers in Prince Edward Island. It has never been satisfactorily resolved by the government. We have also noted the U.S. charges against our multibillion dollar tomato industry.

Once again, these are issues that we in the Canadian Alliance have raised time after time. They deal with hard economic issues. There is increased wealth to the country by bringing in foreign currency as a result of the exports of not only tomatoes but potatoes, beef and all other kinds of agricultural exports.

We raised the politics of the ban on Brazilian beef, the politics of the Liberal government fighting an economic battle for another sector of the economy, specifically the airline industry. In fact it caused problems in the agriculture sector in order to help what I guess it felt was a higher priority.

There is the ineffectiveness of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency. We raised that in the House just the other day. That again is an economic factor which will impact very negatively on agriculture and Canadians as a whole if something is not done about it. It also impacts, as the health minister should know but does not seem to, on the environment. If his agency were operating properly, we would have new, safer pesticides and chemicals coming on stream and we would get rid of the old ones which are more toxic. What do we have? Inaction.

In addition to all of those things, on September 27 we sponsored an emergency debate on farm incomes. Through the use of a concurrence motion, I forced another agriculture debate on November 1.

Therefore, my question for the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP, the Bloc, for everyone in the House is, who has done more for agriculture than the Canadian Alliance?

[Loyola Hearn, Progressive Conservative, St. John's West, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I will not argue with the member on the point but I think Hansard will show who has done more for agriculture.

Does the member think that a properly focused budget which puts money into our primary resources such as agriculture and the fisheries not only would help those industries but would also create a tremendous number of good, solid jobs?

[Howard Hilstrom, Canadian Alliance, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when we look at some of the government spending that is non-productive, to say the least, certainly that spending could go into agriculture and would really increase the productivity of the country.

Our dollar is down to 62 or 63 cents which is a direct result of the wasteful spending identified in the motion, wasteful spending that does not generate wealth for the country. That is exactly what we are talking about, that is, using the resources of the country to make us all wealthier, not poorer.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, an organization called Ducks Unlimited has been meeting with members of parliament in Ottawa. It has a proposal that would give farmers the option of converting marginal farmland into areas reserved for birds and waterfowl. There would be compensation associated with that. As I understand it, the program has worked quite well in the United States. It deals with the very serious problem of marginal farmland. Farmers would have the option of being compensated. They would take the land out of production and put those resources into more productive farmland.

Would the member for Selkirk--Interlake and his party support that proposal? I would appreciate his comments.

[Howard Hilstrom, Canadian Alliance, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that proposal came to the agriculture committee from Ducks Unlimited. We are in the process of examining it from a party position. We do not have a party position on it at this time. It was deceptive in that Ducks Unlimited made its presentation without any mention whatsoever that Ducks Unlimited, the agriculture minister and Samy Watson had been working on this project for quite some time. It was as if it was something out of the blue.

I made a request in the agriculture committee today. It is time the government came forward and told Canadian farmers and all of us what the five year plan is all about. We found out a little dribble about Ducks Unlimited the other day. It is time the agriculture minister came clean and told us what the big five year plan is. He already has released little details about it involving approximately 1.4 million acres of land being set aside, all of it expected to be in Saskatchewan with a few dribbles outside. What about all those people in Saskatchewan if there is a plan to sow Saskatchewan down to grass and have no production coming off it?

The final point I would make about that since we are debating this particular issue now is that when it comes to a private American corporation like Ducks Unlimited, we do not want to see its name on the land title, the caveat or agreement with a farmer on land set aside. We are not against the scheme of setting land aside but we certainly are against Ducks Unlimited having its name on the land title and on the caveat.

We would agree to the Government of Canada having its name on a land title but we certainly would not allow a big American corporation to have its name on it.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member did not spend much time on article (d) of the opposition day motion which deals with EI. He is from the same province I am from. The cutbacks to EI have had a dramatic impact on our province, maybe more of an impact in the inner city riding that I represent.

Is the member aware that in my riding alone the cutbacks to EI cost $20.8 million per year? Under the current rules, 1,400 fewer people are eligible than would be under the old rules. I would ask him to try and keep in mind that if a new business with a payroll of $20 million a year wanted to come to a riding, we would be very pleased and would pave the streets with gold to invite the company in.

Rather than bringing down the premiums as is contemplated in article (d), would the member not see the logic in increasing the eligibility so more people would be eligible for the benefits?