Mr. Speaker, there are days when no amount of effort moves things forward. This is only the third time I have tried to finish my speech. I hope that no other prerogatives of the House will prevent me from making it all the way to the end. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will show some understanding.
Before I was interrupted I was saying that when one puts 30% of one's income into accommodation one is viewed as needing assistance.
In view of such outrageous figures, which reveal that an additional almost 60% of homes in Canada spend over 50% of their income on accommodation, how is it the Minister of Finance did not give a moment's thought to spending a cent on social housing? It would have been easy to allocate $2 billion or $3 billion of the $135 billion expected surplus over the next five years. Why did he not think of that?
Why, on the other hand, did he think to turn to the millionaires, people who are not having a hard time, people who do not need $9,000 or $11,000 in savings this year? However, people earning less than $15,000 a year would certainly like to have had better housing for their family. No, this is not one of the Minister of Finance's priorities, not at all.
With the billions he has, how did he end up taking money out of the pockets of the unemployed, the disadvantaged and the sick, those who cannot benefit from proper transfers corresponding to the needs of the people in the health care sector? How did he end up picking the pockets of students, too, who could have used some of the manna going into the government coffers? Why did the Minister of Finance not think of putting money into these sectors? Why did he not give a moment's thought either to increasing Canada's contribution to international aid, which has shrunk since this heartless minister has been Minister of Finance?
How can this man continue to believe that the best way to fight poverty and unemployment is to continue to make off with the surplus in the employment insurance fund every year? How can he not have given a minute's thought to doing something for the 57% of people who are excluded, the people out of work who are not eligible for employment insurance? It is because he needs the dough, because he needs to make use of the surplus to offer tax cuts to those with annual incomes of $250,000 and up.
How can this man not have thought that it would be a good idea to raise the old age pension, particularly for older women living alone?
Barely 16 months ago, a National Council on Welfare report informed us that the situation of seniors who are on their own, particularly the women, is getting worse, and that additional funding was needed to help them and keep us from returning to the vicious circle we were in prior to 1960s. Back then, there was no safety net for these people. How can this man still want to make women and children the first ones that have to pay?
The Minister of Finance's reaction to that, when I said it the other day, was to laugh. I would love it if, at some point, the camera would catch his smile when we confront him with such evidence, when we tell him that women and children are paying for his negligence, when we tell him that his grabbing billions of dollars from the employment insurance surpluses, $38 billion since 1994, directly hits women and children first, and further marginalizes young people. He is still smiling. I would love it if the camera would catch him.
He also smiles when we tell him about elderly women living alone. There is nothing funny about the plight of elderly women living alone and getting increasingly poor.
Why did this man think of reducing taxes for millionaires before using money to help the poor and the homeless?
Recently, an alderman from Hull, whom I salute and congratulate for his work, told us that in the Outaouais region there are not only more and more homeless people who lose their jobs, who lose everything, but that entire families are also homeless. There are no shelters for these people.
Why did the Minister of Finance, who must know the Outaouais since he has been living here for several years, not to mention the fact that he is a member from Quebec, not think about using part of the billions that he is taking from the poor to build facilities to house these homeless families?
One sometimes wonders if the minister and his government have a heart. Mr. Speaker, you know what a heart is. You do. I am sure that you have one, but I sometimes have doubts about whether the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister do.
When we see how priorities are set with regard to budget allocation and when we see the savage cuts in social programs, particularly income support programs, over the last few years, we cannot help but wonder if he has a heart. If he has one, he must have one since he appears to be alive and well, it is not in the right place, as my grandfather would have said.
If his heart were in the right place, with the means available to him today to really meet the needs of those in difficulty, of middle income families that have been bled white by taxes for almost two decades, he could have made the right decisions.
I urge him to go back to the drawing board and to make sure that these billions of dollars that will be coming are allocated in a way that will benefit the right people, low and middle income people, particularly families, as well as the unemployed. These people would benefit from a true reform of the EI plan, which now excludes 57% of the clientele it is supposed to serve. These funds should also be put toward full indexing of federal transfers for health, education and income security.
In the area of social housing, there are crying needs. Will our shouts be loud enough to make the finance minister understand that there are people in the street who are cold and hungry? Will we have to shout louder and louder to express the pain of those helpless people who cannot speak for themselves here, who cannot speak directly to this heartless government? How loud will we have to shout to express their pain?
There comes a time when we do not know anymore what data we should bring here, because we have the impression that the people opposite do not care. We can mention facts that speak for themselves, talk about the 25% increase in child poverty since they took office, the 60% increase in people who must spend more than 50% of their income for housing, we can tell them that 57% of the unemployed, mostly women, are excluded from EI benefits, the people across the way just do not care. What will it take to make them understand?
It should not be so difficult for the Minister of Finance to re-examine his forecasts. Incidentally, he will be making an economic statement in May. I hope he will have the decency to stop taking us for morons and come up with concrete numbers. Even if these numbers are a bit pessimistic due to the U.S. economic downturn, I hope he will not have the outrageous idea to try to pull the wool over our eyes once again. I hope he will not take us for what we are not and take Canadians for fools. At one point, one has to stop laughing at people.
Last week, he said that it was a good thing he made conservative forecasts in spite of the fact that the opposition blamed him for being cautious. However there is a difference between being cautious and hiding the facts. There is a difference between being cautious and accurately stating the facts. There is a difference between being cautious and being cynical when people say they need information.
The Minister of Finance has shown cynicism these past few years by forecasting surpluses that were half the real surpluses. I even remember one time when, within a six month period, the finance minister, who claims to be competent, open and transparent, was off by 130% in his surplus forecast for a four or four and a half month period. Who was he trying to kid? He said he was happy he erred on the side of caution. What caution? He was not the least bit cautious.
He has spent the surplus he has creamed off the EI fund, to the tune of $38 billion since 1994. He has put it towards debt reduction. He has used it to lower taxes to millionaires. Where is this so-called caution? Where is the EI cushion?
Suppose there is a downturn in the economy resulting in an increase in the number of unemployed, then we will need more money to help them. Where is the cushion to do that? It is gone. Where is the finance minister's caution? It has gone by the wayside.
I will give you the real numbers. Before the downturn in the U.S. economy, we were expecting a surplus of roughly $148 billion over the next five years. For once we were in agreement with the finance minister, and we will not start arguing about a few comas or decimal points. With this year's downturn, and we have also taken into account next year's downturn and a normal real growth of the GDP, the gross domestic product, we came up with a projected surplus of $136 billion at worst. This would mean a shortfall of about $12 billion over five years. A little over two billion a year is not that bad.
If the finance minister would only stop lowering the taxes for the rich and use the bulk of the surplus to lower the taxes for middle and low income earners, invest in social housing, correct the inequities and injustices of the employment insurance system, and index the health, education and income security transfers, there would be no problem. Every year he could even pay back some of the federal accumulated debt. He would be able to do that. He better not come up with numbers lower than this projected surplus.
If he does, we will travel across Quebec, and Canada if necessary, to let everybody know that the finance minister is taking everybody for a ride. People are not stupid. He should take his responsibilities.
Consequently, we will be voting against Bill C-22 because it does not serve the interests of the majority of taxpayers. When they talk about tax reductions, we must know to whom they are addressed. They are for the finance minister's friends. It is not you and me, it is not middle income families, it is not low income families. They will get almost nothing this year. It is the people who earn $250,000 and more who are benefiting from these cuts.
With regard to his tax reduction plan, the finance minister should go back, take a good look in the mirror and ask himself if he is proud of what he did. I am sure the mirror would tell him that he is not proud of himself. He will have a second thing to do: sit down at his desk, do his homework again and rethink the tax cuts, give them to low and middle income people and consider the unemployed. For once, he should have the heart to look at what he has done since the beginning of his mandate.
It would be a good idea if he started having more feelings, if he behaved a little more like a human being, if he developed a little of what is called social partnership. I do not know if he is aware of this concept. He talks about compassion, a more liberal and bourgeois value. However social partnership means partnering with people who live in poverty to try to bring them some relief. He is in a major position and he could bring some relief to these people.
I simply ask him to reconsider his past decisions, to do his homework over and to reflect on what I have told him: to help people, to bring them some relief, to demonstrate some social partnership and to show some heart. It seems to me that this is easy, that one does not need magic to do it.