Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of the constituents of Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre on the opposition motion. A delayed crisis budget is a poor substitute for what Canadians deserve from their government. Canadians deserve a normal budget on a regular basis at predetermined times.
Has the Liberal Party found it easier to run the government through members of the inner circle of cabinet? How is parliament expected to function when the government administers public policy through the core of its inner circle? These are questions that are being asked in my riding.
I understand that I am one of the newer members of the House. That does not mean I do not understand that government is abusing power and authority in many cases by investing so much power in the Prime Minister's Office.
Since I am not fully acclimatized to this place it is easier for me to see that is where the power is coming from. There is such a thin green line, as I have said in talks in Saskatchewan, between us and a dictatorship. The erosion of democracy may be the reason for the rumour that the upcoming budget is not even from the Minister of Finance but from the Prime Minister.
Canadians deserve better. The Canadian Alliance is calling for $2 billion in national defence spending that would make us a more credible member of NATO. Another billion to our homeland securities providers would certainly not be an unrealistic expectation. The equipment and the resources given to our military are embarrassing to many of us.
Canadians deserve better when it comes to the support of agriculture. It is an established fact that the last decade has not served Canadians well. They have seen their financial situation worsen and the government is not likely to make any meaningful corrections in the budget.
Canada faced one of the worst droughts on record and the Liberal government could not seem to find any more than $2 million. I am not sure if it found that for Saskatchewan farmers to drill new water wells and dig dugouts. The agency responsible for that ran out of money in late spring or early summer. Saskatchewan asked for something like $5 million and according to the latest figures it might get $2 million.
Canadians deserve better support and more realistic employment insurance premiums. On November 30 the Minister of Finance announced a cut in EI premiums to $2.20 per $100 of insurable earnings. That is a nickel a hundred. Based on an annual income of $39,000 this EI premium would save workers just under $20 a year. A massive saving, is it not?
By contrast, CPP premiums would increase by almost $140 a year for the average Canadian worker and even more for the employer. The worker is suffering a $120 loss for the year. This year the EI account will run a surplus of $6 billion, bringing the cumulative surplus to somewhere over $40 billion by next March. The chief actuary has said that EI premiums could be cut to as low as $1.75 per $100 and that should likely work for quite some time. Yet we are only seeing them lowered to the $2.20 mark.
The Canadian Alliance motion proposes an EI cut of 15 cents this year with reductions in the following years to reach a break even point as soon as possible. EI premiums are job killers. In uncertain economic times we should be encouraging job creation, not maintaining job killing payroll taxes.
The Minister of Finance agreed with that at one time. In May 1994 he said that payroll taxes were a cancer on job creation. Employers and employees were apparently not a high priority with the Liberal government. If they were, the minister would accept some of the repeated calls the opposition has made toward reducing EI premiums. Canadians deserve better and stronger health care funding by the federal government.
After all, the federal government is the major tax collector of our nation. Both in Saskatchewan and Alberta there are propositions to deliver controversial policy changes for health care yet we expect that the Minister of Health will stick with his approach of around 14 cents, and for some provinces maybe 17 cents. We expect him to embrace the status quo and challenge anyone to alter the existing principles of the Health Canada Act. Is that good enough for Canadians? No, I do not believe that it is good enough.
The government has not even returned to the 1995 levels of funding and participation let alone to the 50% rate that was originally used in the early days of medicare.
Some of the items I have mentioned are not specifically mentioned in the Canadian Alliance motion. However the first point, the reallocation of financial resources from wasteful, low and falling priorities into higher need areas would allow for a broad number of changes as well as all the ones that the Alliance motion mentions.
A lot has been said here and many people will wonder why there is this exercise and why the Alliance would bring forth such a motion when it is so near the time that the budget is coming down. That is a legitimate question. We believe that this has been a good exercise. It has allowed many points of view to be expressed. Many members have offered suggestions of how prioritization can take place. The motion has called attention to the fact that prioritization needs to happen.
The hon. member across the way mentioned HRDC and CIDA among other things. It is not that the Canadian Alliance opposes those departments but anyone who has seen any of the spending reports from those places will absolutely know there is much fat to be cut. There are many areas of waste and useless government spending.
We believe that a government's first priority is that of safety and security for its own citizens. People throughout time have gathered together and they bind together for their own security and protection. That is the basis.
We need to talk about providing infrastructure so that our economy can function and things can happen. We seem always to get so far ahead of ourselves. We are so interested in providing for all of the different kinds of programs that we forget to take care of the infrastructure.
I am very grateful that we have had the opportunity today to address these issues.