Madam Speaker, I think everybody in the House has a wish list of what they would like to see in the coming budget. There is no doubt that health care is on everybody's minds, with the Romanow report just having been published. That will certainly occupy a very central part of the budget.
If we go back to the Speech from the Throne, the government has put forward a number of areas as high priority. For example, child poverty and the need to develop a child care program as part of our early childhood education, which is a tremendously good investment in our young people. There are the needs of our cities in terms of urban infrastructure. There is a long term plan that will be developed and this budget will provide the opportunity to start it.
We also need investments in transit and in housing. Affordable housing is part of strengthening our cities. The report recently published by the Liberal caucus committee on cities calls for an urban strategy. It is a good framework to develop this kind of measure. I hope we will see things like that in the budget.
I hope we will see more money for defence. As I have suggested before, we need at least $1 billion a year to square the defence program with the defence budget. I am hopeful that will be solidly addressed in this budget.
Then there is the environment. Having adopted Kyoto today there are measures that need to be advanced there as well.
One difficulty in all of this is that Canadians, while I am sure they would like us to invest in all the areas I just covered, want to ensure that we do not go into a deficit again, the kind of $42 billion deficit that we inherited from the Conservative government.
I listened to the member just a few moments ago. I found it galling of him, when we consider the kind of mess in which his government left this government and this country with respect to its finances. The Liberal government over its nine years has pulled us out of that deficit situation and has reduced the debt substantially. As a result of those good economic measures, we have seen a lowering of our interest rate, an increase in our employment rate and now we can proceed with $100 billion plan to cut taxes. That is the trick.
In summary we have to find a balanced approach. I know the Minister of Finance and the past minister of finance have excellently served this country in those portfolios. I know the Minister of Finance has very little room to manoeuvre because he said that the forecast for new surplus is not that significant in the coming fiscal year.
We will probably have to look at developing multi-year approaches. We have done that in the tax cuts area. We may well have to do it in defence. We will have to do it in health care. There is no way we can afford all those things that Mr. Romanow suggests in his report. Even if we decide to adopt all his report or even a portion thereof, it is a very costly measure over a number of years; some $15 billion. Obviously multi-year programs will be required to fund that.
We want to ensure that we continue to find that balance. We want to continue to cut taxes, reduce debt and absolutely stay out of deficit. We want to continue to invest in the kinds of things that will help spread opportunity for all Canadians, whether it is helping to strengthen our cities or our health care program, or dealing with child poverty, or defence or the environment. These are all important things and I hope they will all be addressed in this coming budget.