Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-22 implementing certain provisions of the latest budget of the Minister of Finance.
I can say right away that we will oppose this bill, because we have repeatedly criticized, not only during the course of the regular budget of March 2000, but also when the Minister of Finance tabled his mini budget in the fall, the fact that the huge tax resources at his disposal over the next five years were being badly used.
When we speak of huge tax resources, the situation has not changed, even with the prospect of a downturn in the States. We will return to this later. In the next five years, even taking into account a downturn in the economy in fiscal 2001-02 linked to that of the States, the Minister of Finance will have some $135 billion in surplus.
That is a lot of money, $135 billion. It is slightly down from what he anticipated last year in fact because of the American situation. Last year, the talk was of $147 billion or thereabouts. Now the figure cited is $135 billion. However, the possibility of making choices around these huge surpluses remains essentially the same.
The Minister of Finance is faced with a situation in which, through various unfair measures he created, on the backs of just about everyone, annual surpluses that will reach record levels in the next five years.
He has accumulated these surpluses and will continue to do so on the backs of the unemployed. He will take from the employment insurance fund between $5 billion and $6 billion annually to create his budget surplus. Five to six billion dollars a year will be taken from the contributions by employers and employees, contributions which have nothing to do with those of the federal government. The government has not contributed to this fund for a number of years, but still takes $5 billion to $6 billion annually from it. It is shameful.
In recent years, the Minister of Finance has taken $38 billion from the EI fund surplus. This money came from the pockets of employers, workers and mainly the unemployed. What must be kept in mind is that, if the surplus in the EI fund is accumulating as rapidly as it is, it is because of two things: first, employer and employee contributions are too high, and second, the majority of people who are out of work are excluded from the plan.
I remind hon. members that only 43% of people who end up unemployed are in fact eligible for employment insurance. Corrective measures by the government will remedy some of this, but only a tiny portion, not all of it. Despite the improvements made by the bill on employment insurance, most of those who are left out will continue to be.
Year in, year out, the Minister of Finance is going to continue to pocket at least $5 billion of the $6 billion EI fund surplus to add to his budget surplus and to look good, as well as to be able to give tax cuts to the richest members of Canadian society.
As well, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Minister of Finance created this surplus, and will continue to add to it, at the expense of the provinces.
For six years now, the Minister of Finance has cut transfer payments to the provinces for the funding of education, health and income security. This was money that the provinces did not have, year after year, to meet their citizens' needs.
The surplus is in Ottawa, while the needs are in the provinces. The health sector needs money, and the Minister of Finance had plenty. Last year the Minister of Finance did restore some funding, but year after year they are still some $2 billion short of what is required to cope with changing health costs, caused in large part by the aging of the population. Over the next five years, the shortfall in transfers will total $10 billion.
Given the greying of the population, we know there will be a natural increase of 3% in health requirements, in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. This increase is solely because of the fact that the population is aging. The Minister of Finance has not taken this phenomenon into account and the surplus continues to accumulate in his coffers.
This year again, in spite of the downturn in the U.S. economy, the Minister of Finance will have a surplus of about $18 billion to $20 billion. It is easy to have such surpluses when one does nothing and makes the provinces do the work by cutting transfers, by not indexing in view of the urgent needs in health and education, and by shamelessly dipping into the employment insurance fund. It is easy to accumulate surpluses under these circumstances.
We believe that with the surpluses for this year and the four previous years, the Minister of Finance could do a lot more than what he intends to do under his five year plan. He is in a position to target groups that need help. The Minister of Finance intends to give major tax cut to those who earn $250,000 and up.
From this year on, those, and there are not too many of them, who earn in excess of $250,000 and others such as millionaires and billionaires will enjoy significant tax cuts. They will get about 70% of all the tax cuts planned by the Minister of Finance. If a person is earning $250,000 this year, he is lucky because he will get the largest tax cuts, because of the changes related to the partial inclusion of capital gains, because of tax cuts as such, or because of indexation. These people will get at least $9,000 to $11,000 in tax cuts.
However, a single parent with dependent children is not so lucky, because he or she will only get about $250 in tax cuts this year. Talk about equity and social justice.
Under our proposals, with the same tax resources the Minister of Finance has estimated for the next five years, we in the Bloc Quebecois would have taken measures to ensure that starting this year families earning $35,000 or less would not pay any taxes. Everyone else would have benefited from a 50% tax break. That is what I call being progressive. That is what I call dealing with the needs of the people, the real needs of the people.
The Minister of Finance could have diverted his resources to the majority of taxpayers, as we have done. Nine out of ten taxpayers would have benefited from a tax break under our proposals, not just 1% of all taxpayers, the richest taxpayers in Canada and partisans of the Liberal Party and our millionaire friend, the finance minister, but nine out of ten, that is 90% of taxpayers.
If we can come up with these proposals using the same basic figures as the Minister of Finance did, why has he not redirected his policies?
With the estimated tax resources for the next five years and despite the downturn in the U.S. economy, because we adjusted our estimates accordingly, the Minister of Finance could have used $5 billion of the $6 billion EI surplus every year to improve the system, raise the benefits and expand the system to include the 57% of the unemployed who do not currently qualify.
Seasonal workers, women and especially young workers who are particularly hard hit by the vicious employment insurance system could have benefited this year from decent EI benefits.
Why are we able to come up with a scenario whereby each year $5 billion stays in the EI fund to help young people, women and also families? We are talking about a good parental leave plan in Quebec City, not the useless kind of plan being proposed to us. With our forecasts with regard to surpluses, why are we able to do all these things? It is because we in the Bloc Quebecois believe that our first duty is to serve the most disadvantaged, those who belong to the middle income category, those into whose pockets the federal government has been dipping since it came into office in 1993.
Let is not forget that these nine taxpayers out of ten, to whom we wanted to give tax cuts considering the huge surpluses that will accumulate in the federal government's coffers, are the ones who pay the biggest share of taxes. Indeed, the federal government gets most of its tax revenues from families in the $25,000 to $80,000 a year income range.
With all these surpluses, the federal government is not thinking about those families. It is not thinking about those who have been taxed to death these last few years. It does not want to ensure that they benefit from these surpluses, but it wants to ensure that millionaires do. That is the kind of social justice practised by this government.
Let us not even talk about social housing any more. It is not a priority for this government, as evidenced by the fact that it has not invested a cent in this area since 1993. Yet, the needs are enormous. Since that year, the number of families spending more than 50% of their income on housing has almost doubled. If one spends 50% of one's income on housing, it means that there is only 50% left to buy food and clothing for one's self and one's children.