The Canadian Alliance members applaud, but they should be concerned.
For the last nine years the Prime Minister has followed a fiscal discipline that has been unrivalled in Canadian history. We have never had the country's fiscal trajectory going in such a fantastic direction. This is a great credit to the Prime Minister of Canada.
Many people think that the February budget is just the work of the Minister of Finance and the Department of Finance. We should tell Canadians that the reality is it is the work of every member of Parliament on the finance committee and members of Parliament who bring to caucus and bring to the floor of the House of Commons during question period what they believe their constituents want as part of the budget.
I believe one of the areas where we as a country have been weak over the last few years is in dealing with some of the economic pain of lower income Canadians. I want to talk about the few things that I personally hope will be part of the budget. I will go through them quickly because I realize that time is limited and there will be questions afterward.
The very first thing that I would like to see in the budget is $100 million a year for the next five years for sport and physical activity. This would have a fantastic effect on reducing our health care costs. It would have a great effect on sustaining our health care system.
We have heard it from the health department. We have heard it from Romanow. We have heard it from Kirby. We all know that if we pushed 10% more of the nation's population to spend a half an hour a day on health prevention, physical activity, we would save approximately $5 billion a year in the health care system. My number one request is that in order to save $5 billion a year, we put $100 million a year into amateur sport.
The second part of that request is not an expenditure but it is to alter the tax act. Currently under the tax act of Canada, we allow corporations in this country to have a 100% tax write-off when they put money into advertising related to professional sport activities. This is for corporate boxes in baseball and hockey, rink board advertising and radio advertising. This is a very large tax expenditure in the Government of Canada's plan.
I would like the tax act to be amended so that expenditure would only be allowed if 10% of it went toward amateur sport. In other words, for every dollar we put into professional sport, 10¢ of that dollar must go toward amateur sport. That would change the whole dynamic and interaction between corporate sport sponsorships. They would not just be shovelling their money to the professionals; 10¢ of every dollar would go toward the amateur sport fabric in this country.
I would also want the tax act to amend the special privilege that we give to the National Hockey League Players' Association. Currently all the moneys that flow into the strike fund of the union go in tax free. Currently they have about $140 million U.S. sitting there. It is a special gift from the people of Canada that all those moneys flow in there tax free. That write-off or special gift they have been given should be abolished unless 10% of whatever goes into that fund goes into amateur sport.
That is all linked to sustaining our health care system and it is not asking for extra treasury dollars.
Another thing I would like to see in the budget has to do with the whole issue of foreign ownership. I get apoplectic about the level of foreign ownership in this country. We are touching 40%. In the last eight years we have sold off $500 billion worth of Canadian assets. The CEOs of the Canadian companies that are foreign owned are now getting their directions from the head offices, wherever they are in the world, regarding where the creativity is done. R and D is being cut back. Manufacturing and new equipment purchases are being affected. There is contraction in the United States, and where do they go first to cut? They go to the branch offices and tell them to hold off on that new equipment.
This is going to be controversial, but I am appealing to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance for this. I would like to see $10 million to $15 million in the budget for a task force on how members of Parliament and trade lawyers could reverse the trend on foreign ownership in this country and do it within the confines of our trade agreements. That is where the complexity is. We do not want to blow up trade agreements but we have to deal with the incredible foreign ownership challenge in this country. My request is for $10 million to $15 million for a task force on how MPs and trade lawyers can reverse the trend on foreign ownership.
Tied into that, our Canada-U.S. parliamentary committee needs a budget. Imagine. We do $1 billion-plus a day with the United States of America and the Canada-U.S. member of Parliament committee has no budget. This is crazy. Members of Parliament from all parties are part of the Canada-U.S. committee. The legislators here work with legislators in the United States. They know what our problems are on softwood lumber. They know what our problems are in terms of ownership. They should have the resources to interact with them. Is that such a big deal? We have been asking for five years and nothing has happened. I hope that is in the next budget, the Prime Minister's last budget.
The next thing I would like to see in the budget has to do with the automotive and shipbuilding industries.
We have a huge problem in our automotive sector. It has been the greatest job creator in the country in the last 10 years. It has been our anchor and has held us together. We are now competing against Mexico and globally. The budget must put leverage and negotiation money forward so we can be there for modernization of our plants. I do not care where they are, whether they be in Ontario, Quebec or wherever. I am not favouring any part of the country. We need modernization money for our auto plants so we do not lose another Navistar, outside of St. Thomas, like we did a few months ago. The Mexicans outbid us because we did not have the industry money to maintain its presence in Canada.
I am appealing to the Minister of Industry through the Minister of Finance to ensure there is money in the budget so our most productive industry, our automotive industry, has the capacity to negotiate and keep these highly productive plants in Canada. These plants have spinoffs that are so multiple that I do not know the exact number.
The same thing applies to our shipbuilding industry. A couple of weeks ago I was in Saint John, New Brunswick talking to the men and women who had spent their lives working in the Saint John shipbuilding yard. It is criminal that this plant has been sitting idle since the frigates were built. The frigates are the envy of the world. The craftsmen from the Saint John shipbuilding yard should be building supply ships. We all know we need supply ships. The shipbuilding yard might be bigger than what is required for supply ships but that should be done. That means that Industry Canada needs more money.
The last thing has to do with health. It is linked to the whole area of creating more capacity within our health care system. McMaster University in Hamilton has a medical centre where people, who choose in the latter part of their lives to get involved in the medical profession, can study. Men and women in their forties and fifties can go back to school, start over, become doctors and become part of the health care profession. McMaster is the model on the whole planet. We need to set up similar institutions in other parts of the country.
I want to be totally Toronto-centric for a minute. I appeal for consideration for the Toronto General Hospital, which is in my riding, to get the resources to duplicate the McMaster model. I am sure there are many other members in the House in major communities who would like to have a similar models in their communities. It is really important that we prick the conscience of the finance minister, the Department of Finance and the Department of Health to duplicate the McMaster model in different parts of the country.
I am sure some people watching this on television are wondering what the bill would be for these things. What I talked about would cost less than $200 million in expenditures on a yearly basis. Over a five year period, we would be talking about $1 billion. However, $200 million for things that make our health care system better, make our quality of life for young people better and increase our relationship with our U.S. trading partner where we do a billion plus dollars a year in trade are not expenditures. They are investments to help sustain us on the great growth that the Prime Minister and the previous minister of finance have put us on over the last few years.