Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to share my time with the member for Northumberland whose speech I enjoyed greatly. We share a common bond in being representatives of rural areas, his in southern Ontario and mine in northern Ontario. We also share another bond in that even though there is a fairly large geographic distance between our rural areas, it is heartening to know that the challenges and opportunities we each face in our areas are not that uncommon and not that dissimilar.
In his remarks the member spent quite a bit of time talking about the broadband initiative and the need for a connectedness. I fully support the remarks he made. While we have had to make some adjustments because of September 11, I am very confident that the commitment made in the fall 2000 election will be met in due course.
We want to be sure that our rural areas share in the wealth and the opportunities of the country. I can hardly point to any government other than this one which has committed itself so greatly to ensuring that rural Canada meets its full expectations, that its young people achieve the objectives they have set for themselves, that families have the access to health care and the prosperity they fully deserve as Canadian citizens.
I would like to also mention in passing that the member for Northumberland and I share something else. His uncle was the chief architect in the design of Elliot Lake, the city in which I live in northern Ontario. We are very pleased to have had the influence of his family on our community.
My riding of Algoma--Manitoulin is large. It takes about nine hours to drive across it. It contains about 50 communities. About one-third of them are first nations communities. Like Canadians everywhere, they are resilient. They are prepared to face challenges with optimism and vigour. They are certainly prepared to ask tough questions of me and the government from time to time, as any Canadian should be prepared to do. At all times they are prepared to dig in hard to make sure their communities and their families achieve the very best that is possible in this great country of ours.
Like many other rural ridings, my riding faces challenges such as the unfortunate problem we have with our American friends on the softwood lumber agreement. I am hopeful that in the weeks ahead we will see a settlement of that issue in a way in which our American neighbours recognize that we are fair traders in lumber products, that we are efficient at producing quality lumber. If they look at the facts, they will be pleased to agree with us that allowing Canadian lumber manufacturers fair and open access to their markets is the right thing that should be done in these circumstances.
This winter something else is facing us. My area is heavily involved in winter tourism. The lack of snow has been a real hardship for many of our tourist operators and those who depend on our snow trails and so on. We hope that will be resolved fairly soon.
The budget the finance minister presented on December 10 has, as has all past budgets of this government since 1993, evoked a sense of confidence and a willingness by the government to listen to all corners of the country. While having to deal with the consequences of the tragic events of September 11, the budget also made sure that we stayed on track as far as meeting our throne speech and election commitments. It also ensured that we did not again return to deficits such as we saw under the last administration which ended in 1993.
In the budget the finance minister was able to announce that we are the only G-7 nation to balance its books this year.
I had the opportunity to be on the finance committee in my first parliament, from 1993 to 1997. During that parliament the government, with the help of the finance committee and stakeholders across the country, had to tackle the problem of what to do with the deficit we had inherited, which was over $40 billion a year.
Those were very interesting years as we listened to Canadians from coast to coast. We tried to provide whatever advice we could to the government on what should be done to deal with the government's books.
Working together with Canadians, we have now had five surplus budgets in a row, something which has not been seen for 50 years in this country. While Canadians might be concerned from time to time about specific issues, I believe that fundamentally they want the country to be managed well. I believe they agree that we have been doing that consistently year in and year out. Things are not always perfect, but overall we have managed our affairs in such a way that confidence can be achieved in all sectors of the economy.
When the finance minister presented his budget, he had to set aside considerable sums to deal with the need for increased air security and security of our borders, including our ocean borders. These do not come without great expense. Because of that it was necessary to reprofile and reschedule certain government initiatives without lessening our commitment to those initiatives. The broadband initiative is one of them.
I strongly believe in the broadband initiative. I had the opportunity to discuss this initiative with a number of my constituents at three broadband round tables I helped host in Little Current, Blind River and Wawa in my riding last fall. As my colleague from Northumberland said in his remarks a few minutes ago, keeping Canadians connected and improving the degree of connectedness is absolutely essential to ensure that all Canadians from coast to coast share in the wealth of this country.
Let me touch on a few topical subjects. Notwithstanding the tragic events of last fall, health care is an issue at the top of the minds of Canadians. We recently saw the results of the premiers meeting, who met mainly to discuss health care. I agreed with them and their recommitment to the five principles of the Canada Health Act. They took the opportunity and recommitted themselves to remind all of us that we have one of the best health care systems in the world.
Most Canadians when polled will agree that while our health care system may need a bit of fixing and in some areas may need some major tinkering, it is one of the best systems in the world. We must at all costs not compromise the public nature of our system by moving in the wrong direction at this time. I would counsel my opposition colleagues, who speak about the need for a two tier system, that we must at all costs not move in that direction.
I remind my friends opposite that in the fall of 2000 the Prime Minister made an agreement with all the premiers that the federal government would invest an additional $23 billion over the next five years in health care. This is on top of the many billions of dollars that are transferred each year under the current transfer programs for the purposes of health care.
When the premiers claim there is a diminishing financial stake in health care by the federal government, they fail to point out that it was only a few years ago, I believe 10 or 15 years ago, that the federal government gave up tax points to the provinces at their request so they could have extra tax room in their provincial taxation systems to raise funds for health care, education and so on. They asked for the transfer of tax points. In so doing the federal government gave up tax room and in fact reduced its tax revenue for the benefit of the provinces.
When we do the arithmetic, the federal share of health care is in excess of 30% of the total cost. Since we depend upon the provinces and territories to administer the system, we do not have any say in how it is managed day in, day out, year in, year out. We simply transfer the funds and only demand that they maintain the five principles of health care.
In conclusion, this budget has proven again that Canadians can have confidence in the ability of the government to manage the finances on their behalf. I look forward to the support of our colleagues across the way when we vote on the budget later today.