Debates of Jan. 29th, 2002

The Budget

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member give his point of view on how the budget affected him personally in his riding. I would like to share with him how the most recent budget impacted the riding of Winnipeg Centre and ask for his comments on whether he still maintains the same point of view in light of what I am about to tell him.

Winnipeg Centre is the third poorest riding in all of Canada by whatever measurement. Nothing in the most recent budget did anything to alleviate the growing gap between rich and poor in this country. The most recent budget concentrated on many of the things that the hon. member quite rightly cited, but it did nothing to alleviate or ameliorate the urgent social deficit as exemplified by a riding such as mine that is going through such hardship.

This budget failed to reach the objective on many levels. I understood that one objective was for equality. Equality in this country used to be the basic premise of the very reason that we came here. It was to make the country a better place to live, to elevate the standards of wages and living conditions of the people who needed it most and to narrow the gap between rich and poor. In that light this current budget has failed dismally.

I will deal with one specific area, the EI program, and I will ask the hon. member to comment on that. In 1990, 63% of unemployed people in my riding qualified for EI benefits. In 1999, 23% of unemployed people were eligible for EI benefits. The changes brought in by the Liberal government that were not altered in the current budget pulled $20.8 million per year out of my riding.

The current budget tinkered with minor little details but did nothing to deal with the eligibility issue and the reduction in benefits issue. Would the hon. member not agree, seeing as the EI program is showing a surplus of $750 million a month, making up a great deal of the surplus that the government enjoys, that the time was right to restore the former EI program which allowed better eligibility and qualification for people who desperately needed it in ridings like mine?

[Janko Peric, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre for his comments.

I believe that the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre would agree with me that we are a huge nation with a huge mass of land. The people of Winnipeg Centre are a part of the city of Winnipeg, the same as a person is a part of the city of Cambridge. The government is looking at a much bigger picture than only a small part of the city of Winnipeg or the city of Cambridge. My belief is that the budget is a balanced budget and the best budget that the finance minister could come up with.

If we are talking about unemployment we can go back to 1993. The unemployment rate was 11.1% and it dropped down. I believe that the hon. member from Winnipeg would agree with me that we dreamed just to reduce the unemployment rate to 9% which would have been a huge achievement. Today it is much lower than that.

All Canadians have helped the government to go through those bad times. We can thank the Minister of Finance and the government for putting our house in order so that we, and the next generation, could prosper in the future.

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on the Christmas budget, the good news budget, a present from the government to all Canadians.

One thing on which people need to focus is the situation we were facing leading up to this budget: flattening revenues prior to 9/11; concern internationally about the slowdown of the global economy; and the terrible shock of 9/11 which at first threw everyone into no-man's land. I do not think there was a country in the world that had a good grip on what would happen as a result of it.

People were understandably worried throughout the fall as to what it meant. The message just before Christmas was that although some tough decisions had to be made we were still able to balance the budget, implement the decisions made in prior budgets regarding infrastructure and tax cuts and keep a focus on innovation and the growth agenda. It was a good news budget. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, all ministers and staff who worked on it and the thousands of Canadians who contributed to it should be congratulated.

I think people have not realized fully another part to the budget. It shows the fundamental wisdom of the finance minister, not just in this budget but in all his budgets. At a time when revenues are flattening and we are approaching what might be a recession, about which people in Canada are still wondering, what are the remedies? One of them is to cut taxes. The other is to increase investment.

A year ago we started down the road to a new round of infrastructure. We had infrastructure investments in place to provide some stimulus before we began to address the more serious concerns about the downturn so those projects could be up and running as unemployment began to rise. This was reinforced in this budget and we were able to put more money into infrastructure investment.

We also started down the course of tax cuts a couple of budgets ago and now we are into the implementation phase of that. Each year the tax burden is being reduced and the money in the pockets of people is growing.

The combination of the foresight of the finance minister and the government, as well as the ability to manage the finances, allowed us to continue to keep an eye on the larger agenda, which is helping Canada become one of the most innovative and creative countries in the world. I am one who thinks they have done a marvelous job.

As someone who has a great deal of interest in innovation, the fact that they were able to make investments in universities, assist the research councils and continue the path which had been established a while ago to enhance our capacity to create knowledge was important.

Having said all that, I still have concerns. I have concerns about the structure of the innovation programs in Canada. We are too heavily skewed to a few government institutions in Ottawa that suck up far too much of the resources. The way the Canadian Foundation for Innovation functions is wrong. The models used by NSERC need review.

Like any large organization there are still problems which is why we need the innovation agenda and why we need to see the white paper and get on with the work of building a comprehensive strategy for innovation which includes not just the five large universities in Canada but also all parts of the country.

I want to talk about something else in the budget. It is something in which members will know I have a deep interest. It is one of those areas that is tempting to cut when times get tough; that is the progress toward enhanced use of information and communication technologies by government.

There are several flavours of that. In the window right now is something that goes by the name of Government On-Line. Essentially it is the placing online of more and more information that citizens can access about government services and how government functions. It shares the information available in government, but also transacts business with government online in a fast, efficient and secure environment and accesses services quickly when they are needed.

However there is no democratic government in the world that has succeeded in doing this. Canada is at the front of the pack in making these attempts and it is progressing. In fact, in some ways we were very smart when we started to connect Canadians in the last decade. Canada is far more connected than some other countries. In some other countries the digital divide arguments are all about how they get connected. Canada has done that. It is now heavily into the systems design and the systems change issues.

When we look at the basket of issues that members deal with in the House, I would ask members to spend some time to get up to speed on these issues because they are at the heart of the change agenda that will affect every member of the House over the next decade.

As I started to talk about accessing information online, someone made a comment about the current concerns regarding freedom of information. I share the concerns of the member. There are serious flaws in the way the current freedom of information system operates and some of the recent decisions make those flaws worse.

However there is another aspect to that, which is the culture of secrecy that exists within all governments, but particularly within the Canadian government. We do not share shareable information in an efficient or effective way. At the end of the day, what is one of the big functions of this Chamber? It is to hold the government accountable. How do we hold the government accountable if we do not understand what it is doing and if we do not have comprehensive and complete information on the activities of government?

A lot of work has to take place in the next while to get both the access to information and the privacy legislation right, privacy being the companion legislation. The government collects involuntarily information about individuals and holds it. People have the right not to have that information shared publicly. Having a balance between privacy and access is important.

Also, we need to follow an investment curve. I am pleased that the finance minister saw fit to continue with the progress in GOL by giving departments the capacity to build competent online systems. It is time for the House to begin focusing on the issues around how the created information is used and how to turn government into a learning organization. How do we build an information infrastructure for this House that allows us to be part of the knowledge economy?

A friend of mine has suggested a title for one paper we have been writing, which is: In the knowledge economy is it possible to have a smart government? Is it possible for government to get up to speed and start to function at the same rate that the external community is?

I would argue that one reason there are concerns about the functioning of this Chamber is that the instruments of parliament have not been modernized. I am not talking about tinkering with a few rules. Rather how do members get themselves ahead in the information flow? How do they and the Chamber become informed about issues before they come crashing in on us with a very short deadline?

Members know the world has changed dramatically but we in the House have not. As a colleague of mine suggested, the decision making structures in the House are ones with which Sir John A. Macdonald would be very comfortable. We are taking the first step down a road that will change all that, but if it is to be done right it needs leadership and guidance from the members of the House. I encourage members to take some time to get themselves up to speed on these issues because they will be the leadership issues of the next decade.

With that I will take any questions, including the one from the member for Winnipeg Centre, if he wishes to get back to his discussion about the enormous amount of support the federal government is giving his riding.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg South for an interesting speech. While I do not share his views nor his boosterism about the current budget, I am reluctantly compelled to acknowledge the work that he has done in the area of e-government and information technology and his efforts to bring that to the attention of the House of Commons, the subject of which occupied the bulk of his speech.

I would like to ask the hon. member one question dealing with an issue that he raised on information technology, privacy and access, and I will tie it to the budget.

The issue deals with the wrestling match that we have between information stored by government, a person's right to access to it and another person's right to privacy. The context in which I wish to raise it is the guaranteed income supplement.

Another issue in my low income riding of Winnipeg Centre is that we now know there are many senior citizens who are eligible for the guaranteed income supplement, have never applied for it and are who not getting it. As many as 10,000 people are being shortchanged in this way.

The government knows who these people are by virtue of their income tax returns. It knows their income levels and that they are eligible for the guaranteed income supplement. We have challenged the minister of HRDC and the minister of revenue. We have asked these questions. If one minister knows who these people and the other minister is responsible to get these low income seniors the benefits they deserve, why does one department not tell the other department and share that information? The answer has been it would be a violation of the senior citizen's privacy for the revenue minister to tell the HRDC minister.

Does the hon. member think that is a bastardization of the interpretation of the Privacy Act? Does he think that would be a fair thing to do, in terms of juggling privacy and access to information?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a critically important issue. On the narrow question of putting information together today to solve an important problem today, the answer the member has received is absolutely right. Prohibitions in the current Privacy Act prevent that.

Some of the prohibitions were written at a time that predated the existing Privacy Act. If we look back at legislation through the last half of the last century, it is literally peppered with prohibitions on sharing information because of people's inherent fear of the combining of information. The image the public has about government's use of information technology is a frightening one. It is “big brother”. It is the malevolent, all controlling government.

I was in the state of Texas last week talking to the e-government folks there. Texas has 529 separate statutes preventing the sharing of information. That is an attack that has to be made, not to reduce people's right to privacy but to restructure it in light of what the tools enable.

I have said publicly in many venues that our current privacy commissioner is wrong. His approach to the privacy legislation is wrong. He does a disservice to our government and to Canadians in his approach to the delivery of privacy protection. It is outmoded.

We think of these tools as providing a bit of fast exchange. However what the knowledge economy is about is by assembling information it creates new understandings of how things work by bringing information together.

The big changes that drove the big movements in large private structure organizations were based on an ability to all of a sudden see the organization in ways they could not before. They could now assemble information about the organization and extract knowledge from it.

Government prohibits the assembling of the knowledge. How the heck can we build a comprehensive view of what government is all about to enable change? It is a huge problem, and the member is absolutely right.

Do I think that kind of combining should take place when it is in the best interest of citizens? Absolutely, but the minister is quite right. It is prohibited under the Privacy Act, which is why the House has to get its head around the changes that are necessary in that legislation.

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the member for Jonquière.

First, the example that I will use affects the people in my riding of Châteauguay, in the Montérégie and in greater Montreal. However, this example, which may appear to focus on the issue of highway 30, will nonetheless have an impact on all Quebecers and on all Canadians.

Let us not be fooled. A budget is about more than just numbers, much more than numbers. I will touch on infrastructure in particular, on this strategic infrastructure foundation which was mentioned and which will likely be set up during this session, this spring.

I am surprised that there has not been much talk in parliament about the importance of this foundation, yet another foundation that will be created. This is one more scheme to chip away at the powers of all of us sitting here today, of members of parliament. What is happening to democracy in this parliament?

When I rise to speak to the Liberal government bills, and this is not just coincidence, on almost every occasion, for every debate or speech, I have to intervene and warn the House that democracy is being threatened.

Each time that I stand, I imagine what it woould be like if the 301 members, maybe a few less, because the ministers or the executive have given themselves more powers, were to stand. How can it be that members of the House, not only those in the opposition benches, be they members of the official opposition, the Bloc Quebecois, the New Democratic Party, the Conservative Party, or the Progressive Conservative/Democratic Representative Coalition, but also members from the Liberal Party, how can it be that we are being told that this budget is good? I heard this being said earlier: “one of the best budgets that could have been brought down for Canadians and Quebecers”. I simply do not understand.

The problem is as follows: by quoting figures, they believe they will stop comments by our fellow citizens, our constituents. They say that they have “invested two billion dollars in the foundation”, which is, of course, most welcome. “If there is a surplus at the end of the fiscal period ending in March, if there is a surplus, some of it will be invested”. Invested in a foundation that is controlled by whom? By a board, once again by people who have not been elected.

Instead, they are prime ministerial or government appointees, but we know very well that the one behind it is the Prime Minister of Canada and that he will keep on making partisan appointments. We have no inkling of who these people will be, or how they will be chosen. We have some suspicions, however, that they will be cronies once again.

Imagine. Take the example of highway 30. There were promises right from the start, during the campaign for the November elections, about building two bridges to access highway 30, along with a 14 km stretch of road. I have risen in the House on a number of occasions to ask the government what progress it has made on this promise concerning highway 30, and the memorandum of agreement the Quebec minister of transport was asking it to sign.

There has never been an answer of “Yes, we are going to sign it and yes, we are going to finally respect our promse and commitment on highway 30. The work will be done”. All that we heard at first was “Oh yes, we are progressing. We are at the request for information stage”.

That was what we kept on hearing until December. So even without a budget, we would still be hearing the same thing today. They are at the request for information stage with the private sector, to find out whether it might be involved in the undertaking.

From the outset, what we were not told was that the goal was not to sign this cost-sharing memorandum of agreement and provide funding for the completion of highway 30, because the government knew that it would set up a foundation, I think this is the eleventh, to make it hard for MPs and the auditor general to find out what they are doing with taxpayer money.

This approach creates a second, unelected parliament, which will be run by unelected officials, by people who have been appointed. This is serious. Each time, I am forced to speak about the erosion of democracy.

This erosion has been taking place since the September 11 attacks. We thought that bin Laden had not been successful. No one can locate him, but he has still been successful to the extent that even in our parliament we have seen an unbelievable loss of democracy. We asked this government to hold a debate on the deployment of troops so that the House could hold a vote. This was rejected out of hand. Worse yet, the public is being led to believe, through the take note debate held last night, that something is being done, when the decision had already been taken to send our troops to Afghanistan or a bordering nation.

These troops will capture prisoners and hand them over to the United States, which will enforce the law as it sees fit with respect to those prisoners, whether or not it complies with the laws of Canada or the Geneva convention. We will have no control.

This government talks about Canadian sovereignty. I do not think it understands why Quebecers want to be sovereign. It is handing over to the Americans its sovereign right to decide what is to be done with the prisoners.

I now go back to the foundation. When the government talks about $2 billion, it is of course over a three year period, provided there is a surplus. For Quebec, over a three year period, this means from $400 million to $500 million. In Quebec, during the election campaign, the government made promises totalling in excess of $3 billion for highways alone.

This foundation will not only deal with highways, but also with construction projects, convention centres and all kinds of infrastructures. What is worrisome is that the government is killing two birds with one stone. Parliament will no longer have any control over how these public funds are used. The federal government will even be able to bypass the provinces, and Quebec in particular, to negotiate directly with municipalities.

Again, I am convinced that this is either a lack of vision or a lack of honesty, not only intellectual honesty, because we know about the surpluses that they took from the employment insurance fund. They have taken over $40 billion, and the amount for this year is said to be in excess of $13 billion.

Earlier, I heard a member say during his speech that the government was giving us a present. What present? This is not a present, it is money that comes from our taxes. People who are in precarious jobs are deprived of over $40 billion in the employment insurance fund. I just figured out what they mean by a present. They take the money and, instead of giving it to those who contributed in order to eventually get benefits, they give that money to cronies, they put it in other areas instead of reinvesting the available money directly in the infrastructure.

I want to tell my fellow citizens from Châteauguay, the Montérégie or the greater Montreal region that I will force this government to respect its commitment regarding highway 30. I will also see that this foundation is set up as quickly as possible and that audits are conducted, even though the auditor general will not be able to look into what the board of directors is doing.

[André Harvey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, when Bloc Quebecois and Parti Quebecois members are angered by the federal government's attitude, it surely means we are on the right track, does it not?

They should at least wait for the details on the foundation to be tabled here in the House, so they will know its basic components, its goals and how it will work. When I hear their comments, I am convinced they are very angry. They are happy only when things go wrong. They would rather see the project fail. What they want is for us to simply transfer funds to Quebec. However, we will not simply transfer funds, because we know that the regions receive very poor services in most areas.

So we have decided to create a foundation and a fund that will allow us to identify the important projects in all resource areas of the country, particularly those of Quebec. I understand that they are angry, because we will have some legal authority and the possibility to choose the projects we want to invest in. The only thing members of the Bloc and the Parti Quebecois approve is when Canada transfers funds to Quebec and lets the province choose the projects and the implementation schedule. The days are gone when things were done this way.

I am asking the member if he would rather, instead of having the foundation has been set up, see the Government of Canada simply transfer funds to the Parti Quebecois and let it do as it pleases and choose the projects it wants. Those days are gone.

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. He is asking me whether Quebec should be in charge and make decisions about which roads to build, where and when. Let me tell the parliamentary secretary that is the way it should be, because it is up to us, and to the members of the National Assembly in particular, to decide where and how Quebec will develop.

It certainly should not be up to a board already appointed by you or the Prime Minister to decide—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. I hesitate to interrupt such an interesting exchange, but we should never forget that remarks should be made through the Chair, and not directly to another member.

The hon. member for Châteauguay.

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue my remarks, but I will tone down a little, because, when a remark is made by the Chair, we should listen.

I want to mention that when we are asked whether this government or the Quebec government should decide where and when our infrastructure or road projects should be carried out, I hope that your remarks about the respect we should have for this House will be heeded by the member opposite.

Let me explain what the rules should be. In matters of road construction and development in our country, in Quebec for example, our National Assembly and our government should decide where and how we want roads built.

The hon. member said that this is simply handing out money to get the work done as we want it done, but I say that we should be the prime contractor. Yes, we can do it and we have the expertise to do it. The hon. member wondered if we should hand out these funds. The government had the opportunity to have its say, to negotiate as an equal partner when the federal Minister of Transport met Quebec's transport minister. He negotiated and he led us on the wrong track when he said “We will call for tenders in the private sector to see if they will get on board”. We have to wait for a budget tabled by the Minister of Finance instead of getting the real picture from the Minister of Transport, who would say “No, we will not do it. We are creating a foundation and we want to keep all this secret because I am afraid to negotiate with your minister”. I do not know why this is so.

Let the federal government give us the money. We specifically asked that it be invested in infrastructures, so that Quebec's transport minister would have money available to complete this highway 30. He would have no choice but to go ahead with the construction. We are now being told that they are backing up, that a foundation is being established and that we are to negotiate with people who are appointed because they are good friends of the Liberals. These people will not be accountable to our fellow citizens. Who will decide? Creating a foundation is nonsense. We want the money so that we, as prime contractor, can make the decisions.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to address the budgetary policy which we are debating today, following the budget tabled last December by the Liberal government.

First of all, I wish to take this opportunity to wish all those who are listening, and to you Mr. Speaker, health, happiness and most of all prosperity in this new year 2002.

I noticed that in December, the Finance Minister did not talk about prosperity for Canadians and Quebecers. He only referred to security, following the events of September 11. He forgot to tell us about the scope of the economic crisis we are presently facing. In such cases, people have to be put back to work.

My father, a plant worker and a very wise man with the good common sense of people living in the regions, used to say “In the past, when governments saw a recession coming, they would invest money in various projects in order to put people back to work”.

During the holiday season, people in my riding of Jonquière kept asking me “Jocelyne, what does the finance minister have in mind to help us move forward, and get jobs?” As we know, the regions are always the first to suffer the consequences of a recession. I looked at the budget summary with them and I saw that there was not much for the regions.

The Minister of Finance of Quebec, Ms. Marois, who tabled her budget just days before the federal finance minister did, had a vision. She invested new money to allow jobs creation immediately, by the spring, in February or March, she did not wait until May, so that people can finally see light at the end of the tunnel.

Many people in my region have lost their jobs in the lumber industry. There were also plant closures. These people are waiting. The Minister of Finance of Quebec took action. The federal finance minister could have done the same. What has he done?

Today, January 29, 2002, is a great day for me, because I now understand why, and I have been asking myself the question since the tabling of the budget, the federal minister finally wants to create a foundation. I was wondering why. As the Bloc's critic in the House of Commons, I am responsible for regional and rural development, as well as for infrastructures. I was wondering why he had not responded to the expectations.

A federal-provincial infrastructure program was created, but it is in dire need of funding. In Quebec alone, an estimated $1 billion would be required to implement projects that municipalities tabled with the Quebec government so that each municipality could move forward.

For the first issue, there is a $690 million envelope and projects are valued at $1.4 billion. This means that there is a $700 million shortfall just for this.

For the second issue, concerning sewers, bridges and so on, 1,146 projects valued at $978 million were tabled, but there is only $690 million in the envelope. This is a $200 million shortfall.

For the third issue, dealing with cultural, recreational and tourist infrastructures, 405 projects valued at $1.4 billion were tabled and there is only $306 million in the envelope.

If one can do the math, this adds up to a $2 billion shortfall, that is $700 million, plus $200 million, plus $1 billion, for a total of $2 billion in Quebec alone.

The federal government knew what was at stake, but it preferred to say “No, no, no, we will not listen to the municipalities”. It snubbed not only Quebec, but also the municipalities. It was the municipalities that tabled their projects. It was the municipalities that said “These are our priorities, based on the resolutions passed by our municipal councils, for the development of our economy, of our municipality”.

The member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord said so: “We want the opportunity of increasing our visibility throughout Quebec”. They want to be able to say: “We are the ones with the money”.

Let us not forget about this foundation. Let us talk about it. It will be created if there is money and it will not come into effect until April 1, 2002. A bill will be introduced at that time, after which, all of the friends of the government, the Liberal friends, will be appointed to the board. They will meet to define their priorities and the criteria of this foundation. I expect this will take a year, or a year and a half.

Does anyone really think that the people in my region, in the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, have time to wait? They are currently unemployed. And are members aware of what has happened to their employment insurance benefits? They only receive 55% of their income. Is it really possible for a man supporting a family to live decently with 55% of what he normally earns? They do not have time to wait around for 18 months, because in 18 months time, they will no longer be receiving EI benefits. What will they be getting? They will be forced to receive social assistance, but only on the condition that they sell their house, their car, all of their furniture and possessions in order to be able to receive social assistance benefits.

Is this what the federal government wants? I think that is the case, I am proud to be a Quebecer, I am proud to belong to Quebec society and I say to this government that what it is doing is serious. It is going to let people starve so that it can have some visibility. That is the word the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord used. He said that the government wanted to have some visibility.

This is not the way to run a country. This is not the way to be accountable to taxpayers. This is not the way to allow people to earn a decent living.

Highway 30 runs through the riding of Châteauguay. In my riding, it is highway 175, which has become an urban legend in the riding of Jonquière. The construction of this four-lane divided highway can be delayed no longer. Such a highway would enable our region to move into 2002, to promote economic development, to stop the exodus by our young people, and to get things back to normal.

The Quebec minister of transport has submitted a memorandum of agreement, and has laid $260 million on the table, telling Canada “Follow suit, and do it before March 31, 2002”. After that date, as the hon. member himself has said, along with the hon. member for Hull-Aylmer, who heads the Quebec Liberal caucus, “It is true, we will no longer have any control over it. We will not be able to respect the promises that have been made”.

Let the government do it. It has the money. There is a budget surplus this year. There is money. Let them stop misleading us with talk of whether there is money, or whether there is not. There is. Let them put some money into meeting my region's expectations. Two billion dollars have been invested into this foundation, but that is for all of Canada. Quebec's demographic weight in Canada is 25% of the whole. So, 25 % of $2 billion makes $500 million. But that is for all of Quebec's roads, and there is not just roads. There are also sewer and water infrastructures.

I am going to use some rough language here this morning: they are taking the public for fools. That is what this government is doing. I think that the people of Quebec and of Canada are no longer fooled; they know that the tax money belongs to them. We pay taxes so that the needs we have identified can be met, not to raise the profile of the government. To meet our needs. As far as the highway in my area is concerned, I want to see the $260 million by March 31, 2002.

[André Harvey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, when I meet people from Jonquière, they tell me that they cannot wait for the next federal election. The outcome will be similar to the result of the provincial byelection that was held in the riding of Jonquière. It will be the same all across Quebec. Quebecers will take charge of themselves and they will take the place that is theirs.

Right now, when the PQ and the BQ criticize the federal government, they always say that it is to blame for everything that happens. Yet, the Canadian government is taking initiatives in our region. These initiatives will benefit the riding of Jonquière and all the ridings in the region, in Quebec and even across the country. In the spring, we will, among other things, build the Canadian centre on aluminum processing technologies.

Instead of doing like the PQ and creating committees that control all the regions of Quebec, we would rather create research laboratories. We will do so in the aluminum sector. We will also do so in the tourism sector, with the Canadian centre for the conservation of boreal biodiversity, formerly known as the Saint-Félicien zoo, which the PQ government was in process of shutting down. This will be done thanks to the Canadian government. We will also promote genome research in our regions, again thanks to the Canadian government.

With regard to the issue of highways, the PQ and the BQ have always said no to the construction of highway 175 between Quebec City and the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region. Only very recently did they agree to go ahead with this project. They got such a scare from the results of the byelection in the riding of Jonquière that they are prepared to agree to anything.

They should at least have the decency to wait until the bill that will create the foundation is drafted and tabled. Then they can express their views. But we will have a tool that will allow us, as representatives of the Canadian government, to make choices jointly with the Quebec government and the other provincial governments, and say “Yes, we think this is an important project”.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to descend to the level of the member for Chicoutimi—Le-Fjord. What we are talking about this morning is important. It is important to tell our constituents that this is our money, that we are not asking for charity.

The federal government has always sent crumbs to the regions of Quebec. Next to nothing. The member for Chicoutimi--Le Fjord has told us about the crumbs sent by the government. We have been asking for help for ages. I still say that I want all my taxes back.

In the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region alone, we are paying close to $800 million a year in federal taxes. I want it back. All the crumbs, all the scraps the government sends are my money and I will take it. I am not going to go begging the federal government for help. I am asking, but I am not asking the member for Chicoutimi--Le Fjord, because he is engaging in petty politics, and I will not stoop to that.

I was elected by a population respectful of the needs people define as their priorities in committees which they form for that purpose. I respect this form of democracy. I am a very democratic person.

The Saguenay—Lac-St-Jean region identified as a priority a divided four lane highway in the Parc des Laurentides, and sought federal funding of $260 million before March 31, 2002.The federal government has allowed this uncertainty to go on for too long. For Quebec's highways alone, it promised $3.5 billion during the last election campaign. Enough of promises. People are fed up; everyone is ready to get down to work.

I say that we should all put our shoulder to the wheel. We should work with their money to give people their due. I ask for nothing more.

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Northumberland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the member for Algoma--Manitoulin.

Indeed, it is a pleasure today to rise and speak on the budget. At times, I suppose, we sit here and listen to the debate back and forth and wonder if money alone could solve all of these problems. I think it is clear that each one of us has our own priorities. As parties, of course, we establish these priorities as part of the party system, and as we look at what we would like to see they obviously reflect the priorities we have established from our party base.

The values and vision espoused in the budget have in fact been significantly impacted as a result of September 11, but I think the budget properly adjusts to those events and proceeds in a way that I think is showing a good and solid future vision for the government.

Like the member for Winnipeg South, I want to look at some of the infrastructure that the budget affects and how it may affect us in the future. I would like to address this matter by looking at my riding as a microcosm. I would like to focus on an area that is research, innovation and technology, which was an interest of mine when I was elected in November 2000 and has continued to be since then.

When I first appeared in the House and made my maiden speech about a year ago, I announced as part of it that I was starting a research, innovation and technology committee to give me advice on how we should chart the course for the technology related sector within my riding. In its conclusions and recommendations to me, the research, innovation and technology committee indicated that there was a great and significant need for technological infrastructure within my riding. Urban areas even within my riding are far ahead of the rural neighbours, and of course they are absolutely miles behind the major metropolitan areas.

In the new economy that we are already entering upon, we have come to rely on the broadband communications for everything from banking to health care. It is vital that the Government of Canada show its commitment to ensuring that all areas of our country have adequate access to this fundamental resource. Broadband sources such as fibre optic cabling can be compared to our quest to link this country with the railroad. Then, of course, we required the ability to transfer goods efficiently across this great country. Now, in our global economy of today, we require that same ability, but instead of the rails and ties of yesterday we have the bits and bytes of today.

In the last election we went to the people of the country and made a pledge to them that we would focus on creating a smart Canada, a country that has innovation and education as part of its primary resources. We pledged to make Canada a top five leader in research and innovation by the year 2010.

To this end, we must harness the power of the information age. We must provide access to the Internet and all of its associated information technologies. The information age does not apply just to those who live in major urban centres. Canadians from coast to coast need that access. If we are to truly promote knowledge and reward innovation, then we must take steps to foster growth within this important sector of our economy to ensure the long term viability of our country in this new economy.

My committee also acknowledged that as long as rural Canada does not have adequate access to broadband communications and those assorted tools that go with it, we will have great difficulty in attracting new business to our regions. Even for things so simple as the promotion of our regions through online databases of our economic resources, such as the availability of land or space for new location of facilities, these have all been compiled and are conveyed through our online resources.

This technology infrastructure is a must if we intend to compete in that new economy. The Internet of today is not just another research tool.

As I look at my rural riding I see health care as a primary example of where broadband communications are needed so desperately. In Northumberland, we have access to numerous health care facilities, fine health care facilities. However, they are not yet able to reach their full potential of information sharing. With the electronic files now being produced by the CAT scan and the MRI, doctors have the ability to view and manipulate the various files that are produced, but in fact without the proper means of transmission of those files from place to place, really they have to find a physical way to attend at these various facilities in order to properly diagnose and give advice.

This is a classic case of a bottleneck in the system. The specialist has to physically travel to view those files at the various hospitals. With a shortage of those people who read those files, broadband communications is something that could be very helpful, not only to the health and welfare of those rural Canadians but to allow us to get proper service to our health care system in an efficient way.

I am pleased to see that in this budget there is a continuing commitment from the Government of Canada in the area of strategic infrastructure. With the Strategic Infrastructure Foundation, we should have the ability to look at this for some of these major infrastructure projects. I do not think we can look at this as simply being available only for highways, urban transport and sewage treatment. I think we can look at it in the broader context of all our technological infrastructure needs.

At this point so many communities in rural Canada are starting to have some fibre optic cable running through them, but the catch is to try to figure out a way to connect to that fibre optic cable. The government is now looking at private and public sector partnerships to ensure that these rural communities will have the ability to harness this power inherent within the Internet and broadband communications.

So how do rural areas like my riding move forward? How do we push down these barriers? How do we get ready for this new economy and promote ourselves for this new investment? On the local level, of course, we have a strategy that is used for attracting and sustaining diverse businesses, but I think we have to use technology and work more with technology to enhance and improve our way of life in rural areas, particularly as it applies to health care, continuing education and other key sectors.

It is important that the views of the rural communities such as mine in Northumberland are brought forward and heard. The guidance and leadership from our government as demonstrated by this budget is an imperative for rural Canada. There is only so much time for rural communities to become competitive in the new economy and our government must continue to expand our ability to assist communities in getting up to speed.

With this budget, I believe we are taking another step forward with the creation of this Strategic Infrastructure Foundation. Within our government we always have to be looking forward. I call upon our government to take another positive step by putting together working groups within our communities to examine the issues of broadband technology, not only in the cities but in the rural areas, for I think it is through this means that we will be able to interconnect this country and reap the benefits therefrom.

People in rural communities such as my riding are looking forward to leadership from us. This is an important issue. The budget has given us the vision and has given support but we need to do more. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House in the coming months to continue to advance this issue, to work with the stakeholders in ensuring that the needs of rural Canadians will be met as we look at creating a more innovative country.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for an interesting speech full of nothing short of boosterism for the most recent budget. I am rising to say that I disagree with the hon. member's optimism that the most recent budget in fact will meet the goals he states.

The reason I stand today is to ask him just what the measurement is that the Liberal government uses in trying to determine if the budget in fact is meeting the goals and objectives, or what is the yardstick it uses to measure progress by? By any realistic evaluation of the real social problems facing the country, it has failed to move the debate along that yardstick one iota. The current budget again ignores the huge compiled social deficit that has developed over a decade of cutbacks to social spending.

I would ask him, given the promises made in the throne speech, the promises made in the red book and given the business plan that is the most recent budget, because a budget is in fact a business plan, by what yardstick does he measure the progress he has so proudly spoken of in the country today? What meaningful impact has it had in trying to elevate the standards and to flatten out the gaps between the rich and poor?

Also, the ultimate question is, how can he stand and say that we are meeting these goals when in fact there is no empirical evidence at all to show that we have done anything to move forward what is rapidly becoming a permanent socioeconomic underclass of low income, very marginalized people in the economy?

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Northumberland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I think it goes back to my initial opening statement, that is, each of us has a series of priorities we have to address every time there is a budget put forward. We work with those priorities. In this budget there was a priority that was obviously a reflection of September 11. There is no doubt that as a member of the government I would always like to see more in every area as well, but I think the reality is that we take our priorities, balance them and pick and choose those areas in which we will go forward.

In terms of this budget, I believe we have indicated where we are going. I do believe that there have been a great number of strides in the Internet and broadband areas. I can see that the schools are now becoming interconnected. It is clearly being advanced step by step so that we will be able to achieve our connectivity goals.

However, I do say that from my perspective it is a question of priorities. We are doing our best to try to meet the priorities as we, as a caring and sharing government, see them. Therefore I am looking forward to seeing the budget fully implemented and seeing the results thereof.

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know there is limited time remaining to offer a question to the hon. member who just spoke. A big part of his presentation dealt with rural Canada. One of the big issues in rural Canada ever since the Liberal government passed the gun registry has been exactly that, and furthermore, the need for secrecy and confidentiality in the compilation of the list of gun owners.

I wonder, given the hon. member's obvious attachment and professed concern for rural Canadians in particular, how he feels about what we have learned, that is, the Liberal government intends to contract out the gun registry to private contractors. How does his government intend to ensure confidentiality of that information?

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Northumberland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when I express my interest in rural Canada it is a very sincere interest in seeing rural Canada develop. As part of my interest in rural Canada, on the Prime Minister's task force on the future of agriculture in the country I have travelled from coast to coast in the last six months and talked to farmers about their interests in agriculture.

Quite frankly, for the most part their interests in those rural areas have to do not with guns but more to do with how they can seek and maintain a good standard of living. I think that is where we will be putting our efforts and our energy and therefore I am of the belief that this budget will carry us forward to reach that goal.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin, ON]

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.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. member for Algoma--Manitoulin. It strikes me that even though he represents a rural and northern riding and I represent an inner city riding, we have a great deal in common.

The hon. member mentioned he has 32 first nations communities within his riding. He would be interested to know that the riding of Winnipeg Centre has 11,000 first nations people living within the core area of the inner city of Winnipeg.

I would like to ask the hon. member to share some of his views on how the budget impacts the issues facing aboriginal people in both of our ridings. By way of introducing the idea, I point out to him that aboriginal people all across the country had reasonable expectations in this era of budgetary surpluses. As the member pointed out, we have had five balanced budgets and five budgetary surpluses. Therefore, surely this was the time to address some of the historic grievances and injustices facing aboriginal people.

Would he not agree that if we do not act promptly on these issues, we are in danger of creating a permanent underclass in our society and that the issue only compounds from year to year the longer the government puts off dealing realistically with the needs of aboriginal people?

Would the hon. member agree that society moves forward only when we all move forward together? This budget failed to bring along with us the 20% of people who are marginalized, many of whom are the aboriginal people living in his riding and mine.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while I disagree with quite a bit of what my colleague said, I agree with him that we both appreciate very well the tremendous wealth of spirit and creativity that resides within our aboriginal people in our aboriginal communities. Like myself, he represents thousands of aboriginal people. It is with great pleasure that I visit the first nations communities in my riding to share in their festivals, to share in their hopes, dreams and struggles.

I disagree with the member when he says that the budget has not responded to the needs of our aboriginal communities. If he were to look at the budgets for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development since 1993, he would find that the department's budget increased every year, notwithstanding that in the fight against the deficit many departmental budgets, in fact most of them, had to be decreased.

That notwithstanding, the last budget included $100 million for child care and head start program enhancements for our first nations children. There was $25 million over two years to help the adjustment of families and newborns affected by fetal alcohol syndrome. Also, there was $60 million in support of children living on reserves who have special needs. These were among many other initiatives by the government to ensure that our first nations people fully share in the wealth and benefits of our society. Ultimately though, we count on the leadership of our first nations to ensure that the people they represent in that capacity are well served by all of Canada.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to respond to the budget. It is interesting that the budget we just had in December was just days before the House recessed for the winter, and so we have had a bit of time to think about the implications of the budget and also, of course, the budget before it.

I would like to address, primarily, the need for tax reduction and the fact that the government in its budget documents, both the one prior to the election in the year 2000 and this one, talks about tax reductions but which we do not see in reality. As a result, it does not really affect the economy. As a result, we have a recession.

We can say that there is a worldwide recession. We can say that we are so closely attached to the Americans that because their economy has been reduced so has ours. Yet, over the last number of years, when things were going really well, where the Americans had a really robust economy and we had a spinoff from that, the finance minister was quite pleased to say that they did this, that they created jobs, that they have a budget surplus and that they have been able to pay down some debt. He took all the credit when things were going good but he seems to be somewhat reluctant to take the blame when things do not go as well. He should really make up his mind on which direction he wants to go and tell us outright whether he is responsible for Canada's budgetary process or not. I believe he is.

I want to talk about taxes. It is not plagiarism if it is acknowledged. I found an interesting poem and I will acknowledge where I got it. It actually comes from a constituent in Medicine Hat, so the member for Medicine Hat actually is the source of this poem, via a constituent. It is so good that I entered it into my computer. While I was thinking about what I was going to say, I tried to find that poem and here it is. Pardon me if I look down once in a while to see the screen as I read it. The poem is very appropriate because it shows how we are overwhelmed by taxes in this country. It reads:

Tax the farmer. Tax his dad, Tax whate'er he ever had; If he's broke, it's just too bad, Tax him hard, till he looks sad.

Go ahead and tax the man. Tax his dog and hired hand; Tax his cow. Tax her milk, Tax his bed, tax his quilt;

Tax his pig, tax his pen, Tax his flocks, tax his hen; Tax his corn, tax his wheat, Tax his wagon, tax its squeak;

Tax his wife, tax his boy, Tax whatever gives him joy; Tax the man who works for him, 'Fore his paycheque gets too thin.

Tax his buildings, tax his chattels, Tax his truck and all its rattles; Tax his stock and tax his cash; Tax him double if he's rash.

Tax his light, tax his power, Tax his payroll by the hour; If he's making more than rent, Add another five percent;

Tax whate'er he has to sell, If he hollers--tax his yell.

We make fun of this but taxes are on us all the time. I would like to give a simple example. I pulled up to the service station the other day and was very pleased to see that gasoline in my home town was finally under 50¢ a litre. It has been awhile since we had gasoline prices that low. I paid 49.5¢ a litre to fill up my vehicle. The service station had a little sticker showing the tax component. It was 10¢ for federal taxes; 9¢ for provincial taxes; and 7¢ for GST. I used my trusty calculator to work backward from that and discovered that what I was paying for gasoline was 27.26¢ because the rest was tax.

We make an error when we think about taxes. We say that half of our gas price is taxes. Everyone thinks we are being taxed at 50%, which is high but we can live with it, but that is not accurate.

When we go into a store and buy something for a dollar, the 7% tax is 7¢ because we take 7% of the dollar on the value of the purchase and then we take 8% of the dollar and add another 8¢ because it is 8% of the value of the purchase.

Because the pump price always shows the inclusive price with taxes, we do not see how much the tax is. The pump price should say 27¢ and then the till should add the taxes. We would then be able to see what we actually are paying in taxes. The number works out to be 27.26¢, which is the base price. Nine cents of 27¢ is about one-third, so 33% is provincial tax. We then add the federal tax which is 10¢ on 27¢, around 37%. Those two taxes together are 70%, not 50%, and then we add the 7% GST. Incredibly the GST is computed on the price of the fuel, plus the provincial sales tax and plus the federal sales tax. When we buy gasoline, the GST is added to the actual taxes. We are paying the GST tax on the other two taxes. That works out to around 12% of the value of gasoline because it is 7% of the total.

The total tax on gasoline is 82%. In other words, when I buy a litre of gasoline I am paying just about as much to the government as I am to the manufacturer and the explorer, the person who found the gas in the first place, all the processing, the hauling of it, the transportation, marketing and everything.

I contend that taxes in this country are killing our economy. The finance minister has consistently failed to recognize that high taxes kill jobs. Over and again it has been one of the main reasons for a recession.

If I were to ask the finance minister that question, he would get up and say that he has reduced taxes and he would talk about all the tax reductions.

I will not repeat what has been said in the House so often already, I will simply refer to it. The $100 billion that the finance minister claims he has given in tax relief is actually overstated by over 100%. We could again say that it should be 50% less but, as an amateur mathematician, the number should be around $47 billion in actual tax relief. He has announced that but most Canadians have not felt it yet. If we take that amount, which he has overstated, it is pretty equal to that. He has overstated the amount by about 100%.

It just so happens that in the wonderful world of economics talking about something does not have any real effect. It has a small psychological effect but the fact is that we need to actually leave the money in the pockets of the people who earn it so they can spend it.

I often thought about whether it was better for me to send the money to Ottawa, or in my case, because I am an Albertan, to our capital, Edmonton, and let them spin it around. A little bit would spill over. A little would be given to welfare and to other benefits to other people. What would be better? Is it better to do that or, if my roof is leaking and I need to phone somebody to fix it, that I give the repairman the money? He has a job that not only provides for his family but also contributes to the tax base. I think it is way better to have people who are earning their own way.

My plea today is simple. Let us cut taxes in a real way, let us not just talk about it, so that our economy will get a boost and we will once again have a dollar that will be close to being equal to the American dollar and also a standard of living that stops eroding relative to our neighbours to the south. I reject that particular argument that the finance minister always uses.

[Werner Schmidt, Canadian Alliance, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am thrilled that my hon. colleague was not asked any questions. Obviously, everyone was so enamored by what he said and recognized the importance of his message that they did not have any questions. I want to move on from that and talk about the budget.

First, I decry the fact that it took so long to get a budget last fall, two years away from when we had the last budget. A lot of things have changed that had to change. A lot of things could have been addressed and should have been addressed long before this budget came about.

I want to focus on a couple of the things that were not addressed in the budget. I think that is very significant. Sometimes it is what is not said and what is not in the budget that is more important than what is in the budget. I want to refer in particular to the lack of attention given to seniors' issues in this budget .

I think we all know there will be a major shift in the composition of our population. An increasing proportion of our population are seniors. What is happening these days is really interesting. This morning I picked up a number of news articles on seniors' issues. One of them mentioned the fact that old is cool is sort of the new situation. It used two very good examples, which I think all of us know. It spoke, for example, of Regis Philbin, the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host, who is 69 years old. Barbara Walters, who is probably one of the world's great interviewers, is 70 years old and sought after by all the networks. Therefore, old is cool. It is a very interesting world that is out there. I think we are all getting there at exactly the same rate and this is what will happen.

The interesting thing about seniors is that they are a very knowledgeable group. It has been my responsibility for the last little while to concentrate on this issue. I have travelled across Canada and met with various constituents in various cities across Canada. I have discovered that seniors are very knowledgeable and very capable people. There is hardly anything that happens in our economy or in our society that they do not have an interest in or that they do not have considerable knowledge of and experience in.

I have made a list of some of the issues that they consider to be the most important. The way we conducted some of these meetings was simply to ask them what major issues were of concern to them. Health care came up right at the top.

What were some of the things that they were really concerned about? One was the portability of medicare between provinces. Another was the five principles of the Canada Health Act that the Minister of Health has just pontificated upon and assured us are all there. In every case where we met with these people they told us that although those principles are in the Canada Health Act they do not see them in operation. That is part of the big problem here.

I think it is like what my hon. colleague just had to say regarding tax cuts: we have not seen them yet and we have not experienced them.

This is what is happening. Health care is a major issue.

Another issue was taxes. The hon. member has talked already about the fact that taxes are too high. Also there is a cascading effect. A lot of these seniors are on fixed incomes. As a consequence, as the cost of these various articles and services they must buy increases, they are at an increasing disadvantage because of that.

Care facilities is another big issue that seniors are concerned about. They were talking about institutional care. There are a variety of institutions that look after our seniors. First, there is a shortage in the number of such available institutions. Then there is a problem developing the standards in these institutions and maintaining them. None of this even comes close to being addressed in the budget.

There was some talk about perhaps cutting some taxes a bit but not enough. Therefore, the seniors are still at a disadvantage. I will refer to a number of these a little later.

Home care is another issue. Seniors prefer to be looked after in their home if they are not well. It is less costly, more effective and more efficient. Yet that is not an issue that is a priority with the federal government.

Smart Houses are now getting to the point where they can actually monitor what is happening to those who are chronically ill and should not go to an active treatment place but could be monitored at home through Smart House installations.

Those kinds of things ought to have been given attention but they were not.

Another issue is with regard to economic matters and that has a much broader scope. I want to talk a bit about interest rates. During the last little while we have seen interest rates drop and this has been a tremendous advantage to those individuals who are borrowing money. The cost of mortgages has gone down and interest rates are at a 41 year low. This however has also reduced the amount of interest paid on GICs.

In Ontario for example, senior tenants are being hit this year with a 3.9% rental increase. A five year GIC is currently paying a return of 3.65%. If this GIC was being held outside of an RRSP and taxed under the income tax regime, this 3.9% rental increase for seniors becomes a very serious issue. This is a major issue for people who are in the senior age bracket. The president of the 55 plus group says that many seniors are shorting themselves on the purchase of food in order to pay their rent.

I want to move on to the issue of the declining dollar and its effect on seniors. Our dollar does not allow them to buy as much as they would like to buy. I owe Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute a major debt of thanks because he capsulized this in a very significant way. He wrote the following in yesterday's National Post :

The level of the dollar only matters if Canadians want to travel outside Canada, purchase products from foreigners, ensure our capital assets are being sold at a price which reflects their value, avoid the pernicious dynamics of the peso effect, provide a stable environment for business and retirement planning and ensure our internal policy choices regarding taxation, labour market regulations and redistribution meet the test of international best practice. Otherwise, the value of the dollar doesn't matter.

What is not affected by the value of the Canadian dollar? He beautifully summarized the situation with our weak Canadian dollar. When the Prime Minister said that the Canadian dollar is good for Canadians, he was taking a very short sighted view of the situation. The governor of the Bank of Canada, the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister have all said that the Canadian dollar should have a higher value than is being accorded to it in the marketplace. These are empty words. They talk about economics and use a lot of words, but where is the action? Yesterday the value of the dollar rose slightly but it is still on the downside. This is a blip which I am sure will reverse shortly.

I would like to move into the area of pensions. The budget did not deal with this in any appreciable way whatsoever. The guaranteed income supplement is available for those seniors who are particularly short of income. The department's own officials said that a minimum of 250,000 seniors qualify for the guaranteed income supplement but do not get it.

We need to make changes that provide those types of things to people who legitimately qualify. We must make changes that allow them easy access to these programs. We must do it in an economic climate that provides them with a standard of living that remains constant. However that is not the case. All of us have experienced a drop in our standard of living, but the standard of living for seniors has dropped to a greater degree than others. There was a grave deficiency in the budget and I wished to register that fact.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for raising the pertinent and timely issue of the guaranteed income supplement. He pointed out that there could be as many as 250,000 senior citizens who would be eligible for the guaranteed income supplement, but who have never applied for whatever reason. It could be due to literacy or mental competency, or if they are very senior perhaps they have no family member to advocate for them.

When Revenue Canada realizes by a person's income tax form that he or she is a senior citizen who is eligible for the guaranteed income supplement, why does the Government of Canada not automatically issue it, just like it does with the GST rebate when a person is of an income level that is so low, and a person has to be really poor to be eligible for the guaranteed income supplement? Why not just give it retroactively? Would the hon. member agree with that?

The excuse we get from the Government of Canada is that even though Revenue Canada is aware of the senior's income situation, it would be a breach of that person's privacy under the Privacy Act to share that information with HRDC.

The inverse is not true. If individuals collecting EI leave the country to go cross-border shopping, Customs Canada turns them in to EI upon their return. So it is not a breach of privacy to rat them out when they are cheating by leaving the country when they are on EI, but it is a breach of privacy to tell senior citizens about this wonderful benefit that they are eligible for. Would the hon. member agree that it should be automatic when the tax form reveals that they are eligible?