Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Papineau—Argenteuil—Mirabel.
I want to address today's motion from the Bloc Quebecois, because I want to remind the House where these enormous surpluses come from. There have been a lot of them since 1996.
Half come from cuts to the employment insurance fund. These cuts, and the state of the economy, have helped the government generate surpluses year after year. These were planned surpluses. Every year, about six or seven billion dollars are paid by workers, even those who only earn $1,000, and by small and medium sized businesses that employ the largest number of workers with salaries that do not, or barely reach the ceiling at which one stops paying employment insurance premiums. This is a regressive type of contribution.
The government got these surpluses from the workforce and the small and medium sized businesses, which are said to play a critical role in our economic development, particularly in Quebec. They are the ones who made the greatest contribution to the surpluses.
What did the government do with these surpluses? Essentially two things. When the surpluses came as a surprise, following a dubious planning process, at the end of the year they were automatically used to reduce the deficit. There was no debate. Yes, there were negotiations on health, but these came only after the government was put under a lot of pressure, after television and newspapers presented dramatic stories about what was going on everywhere in the health care system.
The federal government also took these surpluses to use, if not abuse its spending power in provincial jurisdictions, particularly in Quebec. Of course, there was a referendum in 1995; the government knows there will be another one and has already started campaigning.
There is one consequence of these cuts to the employment insurance plan and to transfers for health and education that has not been mentioned. I repeat, before they were increased, health transfers were drastically reduced. Yes, there was a slight increase, but it depends on how one looks at it; they went down from $19 billion to $11 billion, and then up to $13 billion. The cuts are slightly less severe, but they are still huge.
In education, there were even bigger cuts. When I sat on the industry standing committee, year after year we heard from university professors and researchers, health researchers for example, who were in a terrible situation. While funding for universities in the United States, including in the area of medical research, was increasing sharply, what was happening in Canada? Such funding was decreasing, and it was decreasing sharply. We have just begun to see again investments in that area. But, again, it is the federal government that will decide where the money is spent.
I would like to point out something. Canada prides itself on the international scene of having very generous social measures. The OECD tells us that, in fact, as far as social spending is concerned, and I am including all social spending in the area of health, education, pensions and so on, from 1980 to 1997—when Canada invested a lot more—Canada ranks 25 out of 29 in this regard.
Some say that Canada is a generous country and that we should make even more cuts. This is the case of our colleague from Markham, for example, who says that we have to reduce income tax instead of transferring tax points to the provinces so that they can take care of health, education and all the rest of social spending. What else would he want to see? Would he like to see Canada drop a few more places, to the bottom of the OECD ranking?
It is very important because even in Canada, people think that they have one of the best social and educational systems in the world. Canada ranks 25 out of 29. Then there is the United States. We say “Oh, we are not like the United States”. We are close to Japan, where we all know that there is no such thing as a safety net, close to Turkey, close to Mexico—which is still a developing country—and close to Korea. Can the members appreciate who we are close to?
What has happened is really dramatic. For one of our colleagues to argue that we have brought forward this motion urging the government to transfer tax points—not only to Quebec but to all of the provinces—only to promote sovereignty is shameful.
Going back in history, I would remind the House that the first to negotiate tax points for Quebec were the Liberals in the 1960s, and then the Union Nationale. Although they were federalists, they did not agree with the way the money was being allocated.
Daniel Johnson, of the Union Nationale, was elected after promising to get his hands back on 100% of the corporate income tax, 100% of the personal income tax and 100% of the inheritance tax. Soon after he was elected, he came to Ottawa to try to negotiate. He was told for the first time by a young Trudeau, a former member of the NPD freshly out of university, who had soon realized that, if he wanted to become Prime Minister, he had better run as a Liberal candidate “I also speak for the people of Quebec”.
The so-called sovereignist agenda we are supposed to be pushing, according to the government, focuses on change. Jean Charest, a Quebec federalist, is travelling to western Canada to meet with the premiers and ask for tax points.
The problem here is not only Confederation, although it has not been working well for a long time and is increasingly so, now. What is in question is the ability of young people to receive a decent education, the ability of universities to continue to train intellectuals who will be able to receive scholarships from funds created by the federal government. The government creates scholarships, but to be able to receive merit scholarships in research, there must be a pyramid. This pyramid must be funded adequately, but it is not, at this time.
Health spending is growing rapidly. Although we are trying to cut everywhere, it continues to grow. We know the population is aging, but this is not all. Medication is more expensive. Surgeries and equipment are also. We know that in Quebec people working in hospitals do so at a lower cost than in the rest of Canada.
Consequently, what is happening is the country, which could compare itself favourably to progressive countries, will now be comparable to Turkey, Korea and the United States, because social spending has fallen. When the government says that taxes must be reduced further, it continues to say that the provinces will not pay for the spending that is essential to a minimum of well-being and to the rights of the citizens.