Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion put forward by Canadian Alliance members.
Unfortunately, although this motion contains a number of positive features, it also contains others with which we are very uncomfortable.
For one thing, we are completely opposed to increasing national defence spending by $3 billion. We find this excessive. Three billion dollars would represent an increase of 25% to 30% in the present national defence budget. This would make no sense.
What we proposed instead in a recovery plan we released two months ago is investing at least $1 billion in defence and security over the next year. I think that this would represent an increase of around 10% in the budget and would be quite enough to meet the new imperatives present, particularly since September 11.
There are other proposals, such as the one to reduce EI premiums, which we do not oppose. But we have other priorities, which I will try to outline in the next few minutes, and which might have made the Canadian Alliance motion a bit more balanced in relation to the goals of Quebecers and Canadians.
We do not reject out of hand the idea of limiting government spending and reviewing any that is non-essential. This only makes sense. If the government is unable to manage the public purse appropriately, we are here to keep it on track.
Nor are we unreceptive to the idea of selling non-core government assets. However, this should be done on a case-by-case basis, because there are perhaps federally regulated companies which still serve a purpose, even now.
Finally, with respect to the capital tax, here too we already suggested in our campaign platform last year that it be gradually reduced for specific companies, including shipyards, in order to help them boost their production and productivity.
However, against the backdrop of this motion and the criticisms I have just mentioned, I would like to set out what we want to see in the budget and what we would have liked to see in the Canadian Alliance motion.
First, with respect to the budget forecast, while we may be cynical about this on occasion, even sarcastic, and sometimes even spiteful toward the government, the fact remains that anyone who is the least bit intelligent, who has a good calculator and who follows public finances on a monthly basis—as we have been doing for eight years now—is able to forecast and calculate the real surplus within a 3% margin, by looking at the money coming in, tax revenue, and the money going out, expenses.
The fact that the government is not doing this is no accident. The Minister of Finance and his cronies have hidden the surplus since 1997, the first year that there was a surplus. The surplus has been hidden systematically, every year, precisely to avoid debate on the use of the real surplus.
Earlier, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance said that I would need to find billions or millions of dollars elsewhere. That is cynical, by my books. I find his comments shameful. Particularly because, in hiding the real picture of public finances, this government and its supporters are betraying democracy. People want to know where their tax dollars are going. All this time, year after year, the government has been telling tall tales. The member should be ashamed to have uttered such cynical and spiteful comments.
If we look at the tax revenues and government expenses for this year, a $13.6 billion surplus has already been accumulated over the first six months.
Even though we can follow the monthly figures on public finances until the end of the current fiscal year, it is impossible, except for someone who wants to deliberately lie, and I am not mentioning any names—