Mr. Speaker, it is good to have an opportunity to participate in this debate on Bill C-18, which really goes to the heart of what we as New Democrats have been trying to do in the House and what so many Canadians are concerned about.
It was interesting to hear the comments of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. I want to register concern about his suggestion that opposition attempts to lift the ceiling on equalization and to eliminate the cap are in any way, shape or form preferential treatment for one province over another. His comments do a great disservice to a fundamental concept, a philosophical instrument, that has been very much a part of the history of this country in shaping it into what it is today.
I am not sure what the parliamentary secretary's main point was in raising his question on the Conservative member's comments around lifting the ceiling, but it strikes me that what we are hearing from both the Liberals and the Alliance in this debate is a fundamental questioning of a principle grounded in the notion of equality. Surely that is what the debate should focus on. That is why it is so important for the government to hear and to act upon the recommendation, which is not just to lift the cap for the fiscal year 1999-2000 but to in fact lift it permanently.
Many of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party have said very eloquently how important equalization is as a principle in the country. It has been said to hon. members in the House that equalization is not only a moral principle but a constitutional principle. In this debate, we are asking the question: if something is a moral principle, is it not in fact morally reprehensible to disband the concept entirely? Is it not morally wrong to remove or to erode a program that has been fundamental to the notion of equality in this country? If it is, as my colleagues have said, a constitutional principle, is the government not wrong not to address the error of its ways when it so arbitrarily put a cap on equalization in the past, and is the government now not wrong not to act to remove it forever?
That is the point of our submission throughout this debate. We very much believe that equalization is there for a reason. It has been part of our history for a long time in order to ensure some measure of equality among all regions in the country. It is in the constitution for a reason. It has been part of our tradition as a nation in terms of building links from one end of the country to the other.
It is our view that it was wrong on the part of the Liberals to implement this cap on equalization in the first place and that it is wrong of the government at this moment not to lift it permanently. Obviously it is a small step in the right direction to lift the ceiling on equalization for one fiscal year. That is a tiny step. It is an improvement. It deals with some of the concerns that have been raised. However, today is an opportune time and this parliament is an opportune moment for the government to put back in its entirety the full equalization program, without its limitations, without its ceilings, without its caps.
It is interesting to hear such clear support from the Conservative member, the hon. member for South Shore, for lifting the ceiling on equalization on a permanent basis. We appreciate that support and that position. However, it is important to point out that in many ways today we are in this dilemma of trying to address and correct a major assault on social policy in the country because of Conservative policies then and Liberal policies now.
I do not think we should let this moment pass without remembering just what kind of damage has been caused to the social fabric of the nation as a result of the Mulroney Conservatives and now the Liberal government which has followed so steadfastly not only in implementing but in adhering to and accelerating the Mulroney Conservative agenda. It is worthwhile to point out that we are really talking about a decade or more of Conservative and Liberal cuts to social programs, a very deliberate assault on our social policies, which is causing such serious ramifications today and around which we are trying to regroup to redress the errors of the past caused by these governments.
It would be fair of us who have been working so hard on these issues for more than a decade in terms of the right wing agenda of both the Conservatives and the Liberals, at least from the New Democratic Party's point of view, to draw the attention of the House to the consecutive cuts and the slashing of programs over the last while, starting with Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives.
Let us not forget that it was under the Conservatives that a cap on the Canada assistance plan was first introduced. Let us not forget that the Mulroney Conservatives used three consecutive acts to amend fiscal legislation in the country, putting funding for education and health on very shaky ground. It was under those steps taken by the Mulroney Conservatives that the country faced the threat of seeing cash for health care and education entirely dry up.
Under the Conservatives, the changes to the established programs financing formula restricted growth in the formula and made it such that given the combination between cash and tax points, cash for health care and education would dry up in at least one province by this year, right at this very moment as we are speaking in the House today.
Incredible damage was done to our social policies, which had to be corrected. Unfortunately, the Liberals came into office in 1993 and by and large continued with that kind of slashing and hacking at our social policies and at our important health, education and social assistance programs. Let us not forget, in fact, that the Liberals promised in the 1993 election campaign to redress those egregious errors and those horrific cuts of the Conservative government. Instead, they very much perpetuated that direction.
We had hoped that the Liberals, once back in power, would lift the cap on CAP and would put back into the formula for health and education arrangements in order to allow for growth in the transfers to provinces, so that our provincial jurisdictions could keep up with the growing threats to the preservation of health care because of demands, needs and changes in the system.
Instead, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre pointed out earlier, the Liberal government proceeded to make the most regressive social policy change in the history of the country. It took the single biggest bite out of financing and cash transfers for health and education that we had ever seen in the history of medicare.
Enormous damage was done by the Conservatives and it was perpetuated by the Liberals. Today we are trying to catch up. We are trying to address the fact our medicare system, our public post-secondary education system and our equalization program, the programs that are pride of our country, were dealt enormous damage and are on very shaky ground in terms of meeting the needs of Canadians. In fact, they are failing to do precisely what they were intended to do, which was to ensure that all people in the country, regardless of where they live or what community they are from, regardless of their income, their cultural background or their ethnocultural heritage, are able to access those programs that are considered to be fundamental rights and fundamentally part of what it means to be a citizen in the country today.
The Liberal approach has been very much a band-aid one in the last number of years. We hear a lot of rhetoric about trying to patch up the system, trying to move forward based on the resources available and trying to do things in a balanced and responsible way. However, the band-aids are so small and the approach is so ad hoc that we are not able to put a stop to the bleeding and actually start to build again for the future.
For example, I think of all the rhetoric and the great fanfare from the government around money that it claims to have put back into transfer payments. In the February 1999 budget the government made a great deal of the millions of dollars being put back. In fact, it turned out to be two cents for health care for every dollar in tax cuts. Then of course last fall as we tried to convince the government to take its responsibility seriously, the answer was an supposed additional massive influx of money through the federal-provincial agreement in the September accord. That turned out to be enough money to get us back to 1994 levels.
This is hardly the kind of strategy and leadership that one would expect if medicare was so central to who we are as a country and if our social programs were so fundamental to the very definition of what it means to be Canadian. The parliamentary secretary does a disservice to the definition of equalization when he talks in terms of preferential treatment. Probably the accurate definition of equalization is as my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona put it: to ensure a comparable level of public services in the country. Regardless of the fiscal capacities of the province, regardless of the wealth each province is able to generate based on natural resources and other economic advantages, no one region should be able to have greater benefits.
It would be fair to define equalization as something that was instituted in order to allow provinces with lower fiscal capacities to fund health, education and other provincial programs at tax rates comparable to those in more affluent provinces. That is certainly the understanding of provincial governments. That is certainly the understanding of the government in the province I come from.
In fact, I just quoted from a letter from the minister of finance from the province of Manitoba. The parliamentary secretary may very well be aware of a very detailed letter from that province. I am sure he has received similar presentations from other provincial finance ministers, who are all concerned about the way in which this government has failed to address the concerns that provinces brought to the table and also concerned about the failure of the government to live up to the Prime Minister's words and the commitment he made in September 2000. In fact, the finance ministers in all of our provincial and territorial governments are very mindful of those words and hopeful because of the wording that was agreed to in the communiqué around the September accord.
I would like to quote a sentence from that communiqué because it shows just how much people and the provinces feel they have been let down by the bill before us today, Bill C-18, and by the failure of the government to restore the equalization program on an ongoing basis and to lift the ceiling on equalization on a permanent basis. That communiqué states:
First Ministers raised the issue of Equalization. The Minister of Finance will examine this issue further after consultation with provincial Ministers of Finance. While final revisions for Equalization purposes for the fiscal year 1999/2000 likely will not be known until October 2002, the Prime Minister agreed to take the necessary steps to ensure that no ceiling will apply to the 1999/2000 fiscal year. Thereafter, the established Equalization formula will apply, which allows the program to grow up to the rate of growth of GDP.
The provinces believed from that communiqué that the ceiling on equalization payments would be lifted for the year 1999-2000, as specified in the bill, but they also expected the Prime Minister to actively pursue an extension to that lifting of the freeze for at least another fiscal year. They also expected to see the Prime Minister and the government address their concerns for a growth factor in the formula so that there would be some way for less affluent provinces to keep pace with the needs and demands on their systems.
As an example, I will outline the kind of impact this would have for a province like Manitoba. Manitoba is a wonderful province with great potential but it is not one of the most affluent provinces. It depends very much on the federal government's fairness and commitment to ensuring that cash transfers meet the growing needs in the fields of health and education. It is a province that depends heavily on the federal government to be firmly committed to the notion of equalization.
In a letter to the government, the province of Manitoba pointed out that its potential cost for 2000-01, given the government's failure to lift the cap for that year, was about $100 million. Application of the ceiling to 2000-01 equalization entitlements may actually result in lower payments than for 1999-2000, despite a significant increase in entitlement as generated by the formula.
The minister of finance for the province of Manitoba, Mr. Greg Selinger, goes on to make a very important case to the federal government for lifting the ceiling on equalization for at least another year and for the government to look seriously at the need to fully restore the program as it was originally intended.
The most important message we can bring to the House today, in hopes of shaking up the government and persuading it to amend the legislation while it has a chance, is to appeal again to the sense of what it means to be Canadian, what is a part of our identity and what is very much central to any notion of national unity in the country today. I do not think I need to repeat this as many members have said it so eloquently. It is our notion of equality between regions and between all people in the country.
What we bring to the debate is the notion based on an old cliché “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”. That is the essence of the debate. We are looking at ways to ensure that the wealth of regions can be shared equally across the country and that everyone has access to decent public service, universal health care, education, decent housing, clean water and clean air to breathe. Those are basics. That is the role of the federal government. That is why we have the equalization program.
I appeal to the parliamentary secretary, who I know has been listening intently throughout the debate, to find a way to amend the bill or to accept our amendment before pushing it through. The government has the fiscal flexibility today to do that.
I hear the rhetoric time and time again. It is now time for the government to show what it means to put its money where its mouth is and lift the ceiling on the equalization program for not only this fiscal year, which is referenced in the bill, but for the next fiscal year, and to look at it as a permanent feature of our system.
As has been noted so many times in the debate, it is a moral principle, is it not? If it is, how can we in any sense of the word dismantle a concept that is about equality and about achieving that kind of adherence to that kind of moral principle?
If it is a constitutional principle, how in any way can we justify that there should be a cap on a constitutional principle? How can we justify a cap on morality? How can we justify a ceiling on equality?
I appeal to the government to amend the bill and to act in the best interests of all Canadians.