Debates of Dec. 12th, 2002

Prebudget Consultations

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for a number of years the member has worked as one of our main critics in the finance area and has done an outstanding job.

What we are doing today is discussing the prebudget report and listening to what the government is coming back with in terms of all its consultations that are taking place across Canada. After being here nine full years, I am familiar with some of the consultations that it has taken in regard to agriculture, for example. I know what kind of recommendations came out of the committee and which were totally ignored by the government.

Many Canadians, including myself, have the impression that the upcoming budget is pretty well already set by the Prime Minister's Office and a few of his cronies. We are going through the motions of seemingly doing a democratic thing. The government is going through the motion of consulting when it really does not matter because the Prime Minister and his cronies and friends already know what they intend to do. We are really wasting our time in trying to convince the government of what is the right thing to do.

[Monte Solberg, Canadian Alliance, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we had evidence of that just recently. A good example is with respect to the committee on the decriminalization of drugs. The committee was still in the middle of its hearings when the minister was already coming out saying that he thought we should start to decriminalize marijuana. The conclusions had not even been formed yet by the committee and already the ministers were out stating what exactly they were going to do. This is a very common thing and we see it all the time. Certainly finance is no stranger to this. We have seen it at many points in the past.

I expect what we will see is that the government will come along and cherry-pick from the report. It will say that it will do this and that but it will not respect the intent of the report. In many ways that is regrettable because, although I have not gone through the entire report, I do know that there are many good things in there and they do reflect in many cases exactly what people are thinking. However a lot of it will not get enacted because the government has no respect for the democratic will. It does not care what the public thinks. If it did, we would not be in the situation we are in today with Kyoto.

In the little town of Brooks, Alberta, where I live, we have over 200 companies related to the oil and gas industry. People out there are concerned to the point of being panicked about what Kyoto could do. They have gone through the national energy program and many of them lost their homes and businesses because of that.

I want to argue that if the government respected people it would not rush ahead with these things. It would listen to people, try to understand their concerns and at least, if it is going to go ahead with it, answer their objections, but in this case it is not doing that. It is just barreling ahead and, I would argue, putting the people of Canada at risk.

I agree with my friend. There is no question that the government does cherry-pick when it comes to these reports and forms conclusions independent of what these reports say.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have one more short question. I just completed a fairly extensive survey this week of 3,000 respondents in my riding concerning the Kyoto agreement. The question put to them had to do with whether they approved of the ratification, yes or no. Four per cent said yes, they approved; four per cent said they were not sure, and of the 3,000, which I think is an excellent return on a poll of that nature, 92% of my people in Wild Rose said no to the ratification of Kyoto. I know the people in my neighbouring constituency think very much the same as most of the people in my riding.

I would like to know if the member can explain to the world how on earth the Liberals can continually rise in their seats and say that they are moving ahead with that particular thing because they have a huge majority of people behind them when that simply is not true.

[Monte Solberg, Canadian Alliance, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the work my friend has done on that; 3,000 responses is a fantastic response.

I have to point out that as people learn more about Kyoto their support for it drops. That has been the record so far. The more that people learn about Kyoto, the less support there is for Kyoto.

This is so typical of how the people in my riding feel. The other day I was going to the post office to grab the mail. A woman approached me, grabbed me by the arm and said, “You cannot let them ratify Kyoto”. She and her husband draw their living from the oil and gas industry. These people do not want pollution in the world. They do not want to see the earth destroyed, but they want the government to be sensible about its approach to the environment. This woman and her husband were deeply concerned about what Kyoto would do to their livelihood, and that is a common theme throughout, not only in my riding but throughout Alberta, and I think increasingly so in the manufacturing belt of southern Ontario where we will see steelworkers and autoworkers profoundly affected by Kyoto.

As people learn more about Kyoto, there is less and less support for the whole proposal. I urge the government to listen to what the public is saying, to make sure they are adequately informed and to provide all the facts on both sides before it proposes to steamroll this thing through this place.

[David Pratt, Liberal, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me take this opportunity, as others have, to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and to also extend best wishes to all members of the House present today.

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate in terms of the prebudget, the prebudget consultations that are occurring and to put a few comments on the record with respect to my views and the views of my constituents.

There are a number of issues that the government has to consider as far as the budget is concerned. Many of the issues, which affect Canadians from coast to coast to coast, have to be addressed in the budget exercise. Frankly, from that standpoint I do not envy the role of the Minister of Finance. There are many competing priorities and a lot of demands to fulfil.

The issues that I think have captured the attention of most Canadians are health care, our urban environment, the environment itself, the quality of our water and the quality of the air we breathe. The issues of defence and security have also been of concern to a great many Canadians.

On the issue of health, a great deal of concern has been expressed by the people in my own riding. As the member of Parliament for Nepean—Carleton, I initiated a couple of exercises which I thought were very successful in terms of getting out to the community and talking about the Romanow commission and the views of constituents on health issues. I say they were successful because each meeting attracted probably over 100 residents. We also surveyed the residents on health care issues and received between 2,000 and 3,000 responses. I cannot remember the precise numbers but it was very significant for the number of questionnaires that were sent out.

What came back from that exercise was a number of recommendations which we put together in a report and sent off to the Romanow commission. My staff, who were kind enough to look at the Romanow commission report and at our own report, came to the conclusion that there were some similarities between the two reports. I can actually say that there were quite a few similarities, certainly in terms of the issues that Canadians are thinking about these days, in particular the people of my riding.

On the issue of health promotion and healthier lifestyles, both reports were virtually the same in drawing attention to the matter of public health, occupational health and safety, and disease prevention versus medical care. These are I think very important to most Canadians.

There is the issue of nurse practitioners and the need to dramatically increase the number of nurse practitioners. The Romanow report says something that is fairly similar.

The changing composition of health care workers and the fact that we have more women doctors these days than we had in the past is another issue. We know that women doctors are in a very difficult situation in terms of trying to balance the needs of the home with the needs of a professional medical practice. That means that they are, by necessity, spending less time in the medical practice in terms of trying to juggle their responsibilities. That in itself presents some significant challenges that we have to recognize.

One of the things we noted in our report was the morale of nurses right across the country. We had nurses speak to us from national associations, as well as nurses who have worked in various parts of the country, even nurses who have worked in the United States. What they said was that the morale of nurses in Canada was certainly low. They said that nurses were feeling undervalued and that governments across the country would have to deal with that.

I do not want to go into too much detail on that aspect of things, but I can say that health care remains a key priority for the government to address.

I was only one of about six MPs to do a consultation and produce a report for the Romanow commission on the state of local health care in my riding. I am very pleased with the extent to which Mr. Romanow reflected those concerns in his report.

We have had, in terms of the debate, two major reports, the Romanow report and the Kirby commission report. Ultimately the government will have a pretty tough job of balancing both, especially in terms of the cost. I certainly wish the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health, the Prime Minister, and all those who will be responsible for the negotiations that will have to occur with the provinces in terms of making some tangible improvements to our health care system, which is something that everyone recognizes has to be done.

On the issue of cities, I served as a municipal councillor for nine years with the City of Nepean and subsequently with the regional municipality of what was then Ottawa-Carleton. The challenges faced by our cities is something that we have to recognize as needing federal attention and support. We have recognized that in the past by virtue of our infrastructure programs, but there is a lot more that can and should be done to improve the functioning of our cities, to improve our cities as engines of economic growth and to ensure that the quality of life in our cities is maintained to the point where we continue to have, in my view, some of the best, most livable cities in the world.

What do we need to concentrate on in that respect? We have to concentrate on things like transportation systems. We have to concentrate on waste disposal, certainly from an environmental standpoint. We have to concentrate on how our cities are designed in terms of ensuring that the quality of life within communities is such that they continue to be great places to live. That will, I believe, require federal support in some measure.

I served with the board of directors of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. From my standpoint, the FCM is one of the leaders working nationally and internationally on quality of life issues relating to urban areas. We would do well to continue to listen to groups like the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in terms of designing federal policies that really have an impact.

I would be remiss if I did not say a few words with respect to the defence budget. As chair of the defence committee it is incumbent upon me to make a few comments with respect to the sort of support that many of us hope will be in the next budget coming down in February.

With respect to the recommendations that we made last May in our report, “Facing our responsibilities: The state of readiness of the Canadian Forces”, I have to go back to one of the primary recommendations, which says that Canada has to get its defence spending off the bottom of the major NATO countries. We are at a level of 1.1% of GDP right now. The feeling of the committee was that we have to move that figure up to approximately 1.5% to 1.6% of GDP over the next the next three years.

Before I forget, Mr. Speaker, I did want to make note of the fact that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Durham.

There have been some suggestions, especially in a recent report, “Breaking Rank: A Citizens' Review of Canada's Military Spending”. It is probably one of the most disappointing reports I have ever read in terms of its suggestion that really all of the push for more defence spending is coming from a bunch of retired generals and a couple of parliamentary committees.

I think the push for more defence spending is coming from the people of Canada, who are recognizing, and who have recognized over the course of the past few years, that we have been working the men and women of the Canadian Forces too hard, that there have been too many deployments, that we have sent them on many difficult deployments over the last number of years, and that some of the equipment that the Canadian Forces is using is well past its prime.

Some of the equipment is good, there is no question about that, but we do have to make substantial investments in equipment replacement. I cite as an example that we are going to have to replace our supply ships in the navy and we are going to need to replace our destroyers, which are almost 30 years old.

My time has expired, but I am hoping that there might be some questions, especially on the defence issues so I can talk about the defence budget a bit more.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the hon. member's comments and I would like to pose two questions.

First, I listened to his comments about the Romanow commission and the fact that the member had worked with his constituents and had feedback. It seems to me that in this report Mr. Romanow came to two very critical conclusions. One is that there must be public financing for health care services in Canada, and the second is that there must be public delivery. I think this is something that Canadians are very concerned about. There are issues around the length of time that it takes to go through diagnostic services and so on, but I think Mr. Romanow provided a blueprint and really strengthened the values that are there. Would the member agree that the public delivery of health care services is something that is very important in stopping this creeping privatization?

Second, in terms of defence spending and the report he refers to, which I believe is the one from the Polaris Institute that came out yesterday, he may be disappointed because it dares to go against the general prevailing view of just throwing more money at defence. I think that what the report said, and I will add that the author, Steven Staples, is a very credible person, is that Canada's defence policy is still rooted in the cold war and that we have made all kinds of expenditures like, for example, $750 million on a bunch of used subs, that really do not serve us today in terms of Canada's contemporary needs around defence.

It seems to me that this report is actually providing a very important perspective that we do not hear very often, because there is a very strong mainstream view from the defence department, from the Liberal government, and from retired generals and so on who simply want to put more money into defence. I would ask the member to reflect on the fact that it has more to do with priorities for where that money goes.

[David Pratt, Liberal, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the second question first. The hon. member has made reference to the report. One of the things I was most concerned about in relation to the report was quite frankly the distortion of the position that had been taken by the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs. It is a position, by the way, which was supported by the NDP member on the committee.

The report states, for instance, that the standing committee was looking to raise the defence budget. It states:

...the committee’s recommendation would more than double Canada’s military spending before the end of the decade, putting it at nearly $28 billion--higher than it has ever been in history.

Quite frankly, the defence committee recommended no such thing. It is not in our report. I challenge the hon. member to find that recommendation in our report. This is simply not factual. When I look at the selective use of some of the facts related to the defence debate, I frankly throw up my hands and wonder where these people are coming from. They seem to be so far out in left field that they are not even close to being on the radar.

As well, in the report there are other statements related to other aspects of defence spending, for instance, statements about the cold war mentality. The original white paper was not written with a cold war mentality. It was written in 1993-94. The world had changed significantly from the cold war. We were facing new problems, new challenges, in the former Yugoslavia. Canadian troops were engaged there very heavily. What the white paper did say was that we needed a multi-purpose, combat capable force, which in my view, and I would dare say in the view of many members of the defence committee, is still very relevant.

No one is questioning the fact that we need a review of defence policy to reflect some of the new challenges we face, especially in terms of terrorism. However, the basis of our defence policy, as many of us on the committee believe, is still very solid, but it does need to be updated.

Another question the hon. member raised was about the whole issue of submarines. Right now in the world there are roughly 500 to 600 submarines. There are diesel submarines that are generally referred to as being conventional diesel submarines, and there are nuclear submarines that typically are possessed by some of the larger powers. Submarines continue to be, for a G-8 country like Canada, a vital component of a naval force, because typically naval forces have capability under the sea, on the sea and above the sea.

I think that the fact we bought four submarines and got a great deal on those submarines is an important thing that Canadian taxpayers should know.

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to enter the debate on the budget, which we hope will be presented in the House some time in February.

I want to keep my comments to three issues. The first one is the debt. This is something that I find we all too often seem to forget about around this place. Everybody has an agenda here. They want to increase defence spending, medical health research and whatever.

Everybody has a lot of good ideas for spending, but the reality is that our debt is still substantial. The government has made substantial strides in reducing our debt. Indeed, from 1996-97 we have reduced it by $46.7 billion. The reality is that back in 1993 the debt was approaching the $600 billion mark. Today that debt stands at $536.5 billion, which is still very substantial.

We often refer to the relationship of the gross domestic product, that is, all the business activity going on in Canada at any one time, to the debt. That has dropped from 71% to 49.1%. Basically this means the capacity of the economy to sustain the debt, but even so, this is still a lot higher than that of our American counterpart.

I would like to talk briefly about why that is important. Because we have these debt obligations, there is a certain portion of our budget that is automatically dedicated to interest payments. That at one time was somewhere around $40 billion. When we talk about health care spending of an additional $15 billion, we can see that if we did not have this $40 billion expenditure over our heads, which we are committed to paying every year, we would have tremendous flexibility in our choices. It would be easier to make some of the choices that we are debating in the House today.

When I talk about fiscal capacity and this 49% figure, I am talking only about the federal debt. I have with me some figures from the OECD countries. They take in all public sector debt, whether it is the federal government, the provinces, or the municipalities, for that matter. It takes in the total debt related to our GDP, because after all there is only one taxpayer. Whether the taxpayer pays federal, provincial or municipal taxes, we have one person to work with. It is interesting to note those statistics, because while we talk about 49% of GDP relating to our debt, in fact if we take in all of the debt and look at the OECD countries, we see that Canada's debt ratio is well over 100% of our gross domestic product.

I will give some comparisons. The United States is 52%, so there is half of that GDP ratio in the United States compared to Canada. We still are significantly in debt. As a matter of fact, of those OECD countries, we have a better performance than only Japan, Italy and Belgium. All other countries in the OECD exceed Canada's ratio of debt to GDP.

The reality, and it is what I am suggesting for the budget coming up, is that we have to continue our commitment of paying down the debt. We have to resist the concept that we will have a balanced budget and simply spend all the money that comes in the door. We have to resist that. We have to park some of that money so that we allocate it to debt reduction. I would very much encourage the government to plan for that. We have been very fortunate in planning spending levels and surpluses and then exceeding them. We may well be entering a time when that is no longer the case.

I now would like to speak a little about health care, because of course that is very much on our minds. The Romanow commission report is before us. While Mr. Romanow has very many positive things to say, and I was very pleased to make a proposal to the Romanow commission myself, I must say that I was very disappointed in some aspects of Romanow report.

The disappointment I have is that the Romanow program basically builds on a structure which is inefficient, and that is the current public health care system.

I believe in the core values of a publicly funded health care system and the five principles of the Canada Health Act. Indeed, the proposals in the Romanow commission expand and clarify them. The Canada Health Council was very positive in moving the debate about health care spending away from politicians and putting it somewhere else where it would have some positive focus. We must demand accountability in health care.

The thing that disappointed me was this $15 billion bill being sent to the federal government. I am convinced that the $15 billion, if we decide it is a good thing to do, is already in the existing health care system. There is so much inefficiency within the existing system. Where, one might ask? We can talk about what health care workers do and do not do. We can talk about the structure of medical practices in the country which are expensive based on the actual resulting product.

Mr. Romanow's expenditure by the year 2004-05, disregarding Iceland as a comparison because Iceland's population is only about 247,000, would make Canada the third largest spender in the world on health care. We all know that we lag significantly on the quality of the health care that we are delivering so there is something wrong with this picture and it does not have to do with spending.

I would like to caution the government to resist spending more money on health care before we have the accountability right and we must also ask the provinces to clean up the health care system so that they become more efficient and effective.

Finally, I have my own little wish list about spending, and it seems somewhat inconsistent with my opening remarks about reducing deficit. I would like to visit one area which we do not talk about very much here and which has always bothered me and that is the guaranteed income supplement for seniors. The reason I got involved in this issue was that many years ago I used to do tax returns. People in my province of Ontario had to file tax returns to get a tax credit. At that time all of these people were coming to me to file their tax returns, which I never charged them for because their incomes were so low. Their income consisted of the old age pension and the guaranteed income supplement.

Today the guaranteed income supplement and the old age pension amount to about $998 a month, or $12,000 a year. If we think about that, that is a profound statement, that we actually have people in the country living on $12,000 a year. What is even more retrogressive is that our income tax system cuts in at around $7,400 or $7,500. So in other words, those people, a high percentage of whom are women, are also subject to taxation which is a terrible tragedy.

The United Way made a statement that something like 54% of all people over the age of 65 in the greater Toronto area are living below the poverty level. At this time of the year when we are talking about getting our families together, about kindness and the bonds that we share with each other, it would be appropriate to revisit the whole concept of the guaranteed income supplement to see if we could not find ways to put a little bit more in the pockets of these people.

These people do not stand out here on Parliament Hill with placards. They rarely write us or come into our offices and pound on the desk to say they have been mistreated. They are the silent poor of our society and yet I see them from time to time. It is a great tragedy that these people, through no fault of their own, have ended up in this situation. Often a spouse, a husband has died, his pension collapsing on his death and for whatever reason the wife did not work so she is not eligible for the Canada Pension Plan. She is required to live on a thousand dollars a month which cannot be done.

Talking about child poverty, we have put a lot of money in to the child tax credit, as well we should, to bring more life into those family units. We have children at risk, but we seem to be forgetting this other silent group of people at risk in our society.

My suggestions for the budget would be to raise the income cutoff as it hits taxation and, in addition, to raise our commitment under the guaranteed income supplement so we put more money into the hands of these people. This would allow them to live in dignity and self-respect as they wait out their years and would recognize the great commitment they have made to our country during that period of time as well.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the comments made by our colleague opposite, particularly when he talked about paying down the debt. We have not heard about that lately and we appreciate that on our side of the House.

He mentioned that the debt is currently around $536 billion, with the estimated surplus in coming years being about $14 billion. However Mr. Romanow, if all of his recommendations were implemented, has asked for about $15 billion of increased spending on home care, pharmacare and diagnostic services, all of which there is a perceived need for.

The failed long gun registry program was estimated to cost $2 million and is now up to about $1 billion. With Kyoto coming up who knows what liability will be put on the taxpayer? The Kirby report recommended increasing the GST as a dedicated tax, as if there was such a thing. The Romanow report recommended gobbling up what surplus there was. Which of the recommendations from the two recent reports would the member favour?

I noticed that the member mentioned efficiencies in health care. The member before him spoke about disease prevention rather than treatment. A doctor in my riding while speaking to a rotary club mentioned that doctors were tired of being accused of not being more proactive in treating wellness and prevention. He said they were not trained for that. However, there is an abundance of research indicating, for example, that mechanical low back pain alone could be treated by chiropractors. Health care economists tell us that would save up to $2 billion. Drugs and surgery are a last resort in this area of care.

About 6,000 chiropractors are out there who are quite able to help and about a third of the cases are going to physicians for this type of treatment, which they are not as qualified to deliver. Does the hon. member think that there are health care efficiencies to be found in the system if we could find a better way to administer primary health care? There are about 1,200 naturopathic doctors as well who would be very glad and able to contribute if the public had better access.

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his comments. I am aware he is a chiropractor by trade so I can understand his interest in expanding the health care envelope.

As members may know I am hearing impaired. I discovered that in my province audiologists had to come under the auspices of doctors, which is totally ludicrous in my mind. I always went to audiologists because they did a good job, they provided a good service, and I could not be bothered with the waiting lists that doctors had. This is the clout that the CMA has in this country and, quite frankly, someone has to take them on. The ones that have taken them on, unfortunately, are the provinces. When they do not want to take them on, they send the bill up here and we are supposed to just write a cheque. That creates profound problems.

We have hospital administrators in this country that are paid $250,000 a year. They switch jobs, take buyout packages and start again at $250,000. These are all huge costs to our health care system.

The member talked about choices in delivering health care as opposing to delivering financial benefits to a few people. We must deal with that.

The member talked about the infamous gun registry system. Let me first say to members opposite that the reality is that money has not disappeared. People want to call it a boondoggle. The fact of the matter is these were costs that were involved in implementing the system. No one has walked home with bags of money in his or her pocket. It has been spent on lawyers, advertising, and so on. The technical requirements were also put into the system. The money has not disappeared.

If we get into the question about choice and whether this is a rational allocation of expenditures, sure, we all have questions about that. I think that is fair enough. The Auditor General has done a great job in ringing some of the alarms. I have some suggestions as to how to correct that too.

Getting back to the allocation of resources, we should not be spending any more money on health care. I believe there are tons of money in the health care system now. We must sit down and find ways to extract the efficiency out of that system. That is why for me Romanow disappoints. He has a lot of positive ideas that we should move ahead with, but we cannot build on a system that is currently dysfunctional in my mind.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure to rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the prebudget debate.

In September's throne speech the Prime Minister outlined plans for his remaining time in office. It was a blueprint for his so-called legacy. The speech was short on innovation and long on recycled promises which were broken before, and definitely will be broken again.

The throne speech is supposed to be a vision of the government, but it turned out to be an old and tired vision, or I should say, it lacked vision. The budget will undoubtedly reflect its misplaced priorities. The only legacy of the Liberal government is a story of nine years of mismanagement, waste, scandals, cronyism, patronage, corruption and boondoggles.

Over this period of time the Liberal government has become weak and arrogant. It consistently refuses to take responsibility for its actions. Cabinet ministers caught in corruption have been replaced so fast that the Prime Minister should recommend installing a revolving door at Rideau Hall.

We have been bombarded almost daily in the news with further stories of fiscal mismanagement and cost overruns. The billion dollar boondoggle at HRDC, the gun registry, GST tax fraud, and sponsorship scandals are examples of Liberal mismanagement. No wonder Canadians are losing faith and trust in the federal government to manage their money. Canadians deserve better. This week the noted Canadian historian Michael Bliss wrote that “the Government of Canada is hopelessly incompetent”. It is true.

It has become evident that the gun registry is nothing more than a fiasco, another billion dollar boondoggle. The Auditor General said the firearms program is the worst example of government overspending that anyone in her department had ever seen. This is a program that the government claimed would break even.

When unveiled in 1995 Canadians and the House were told that it would cost only $2 million, revenue minus cost. Instead, by the end of this year, the registry will have cost nearly $1 billion. That is 500 times more than originally projected and still counting. Liberal government spending has gone wild many times before. It shows the Liberal government is the worst money manager in the history of this country.

Who can forget the HRDC boondoggle? The government used job creation programs as a means to throw cash around like drunkards. More recently there was the Groupaction affair in which the government gave sponsorship funds to its Quebec friends in the name of national unity. This included $500,000 for non-existent or missing reports.

Since 1993 it has become clear that the Liberal government only admits wrongdoing when confronted by media reports or is caught by the Auditor General. During question period we will see the government defend itself for nothing. No one on that side ever takes responsibility. Liberals do not know the words accountability and transparency.

Where was the former finance minister, the hon. member for LaSalle--Émard, when spending on the gun registry started running amok? I will tell the House where he was. He was writing the cheques. We know there are cheques but no balances on that side of the House.

The question is, how many other spending fiascos have remained hidden? With the government's history of mismanagement, are we not justified in worrying about the cost to the Canadian economy if the Liberals go through with their foolhardy plan to implement the Kyoto protocol? Kyoto has never been about science. It is about politics. The only thing that it would change would be the economic climate. Implementing the treaty would result in massive job losses of about 500,000, loss of productivity and wealth.

Domestic emission reductions alone would cost as high as $45 billion according to some estimates, which is 4.5% of our GDP. It will unfairly affect some regions of the country far more than others and devastate communities in this process. Our national competitiveness will be hurt. The Kyoto protocol is unfair to Canadian industry and will put us at a competitive disadvantage internationally, particularly with the U.S. Businesses may simply move across the border to avoid the cost of Kyoto. With no public benefits or even global ones, we are in a lose-lose proposition.

Canada has a government that thinks nothing of putting farmers in jail for driving a truckload of their own wheat across the border, yet this same government does nothing to stop gang murders on the streets of Surrey or the exploitation of children by predators.

The RCMP has seen its budget slashed, its forces reduced by about 2,200 since the Liberals took office in 1993. A further 2,000 officers have now been reassigned to the war on terrorism. The ratio of police officers to population is at the lowest point since 1972. The Canadian Police Association tells us that the RCMP needs an immediate infusion of at least one quarter of a billion dollars.

The RCMP's need for increased resources is clearly evident in the riding of Surrey Central and in the lower mainland where gang violence has been continued over the last decade. Nearly 70 young men died in the violence. The government should hang its head in shame.

The defence committees of both the House and the other place, tell us that our Canadian forces need an immediate infusion of money. The military has been using the same Sea King helicopters for nearly 40 years. The government's actions are nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to the unfortunate event, which is a security concern.

The Prime Minister loves to talk about how he will help first nations. The money spent by Indian Affairs, without transparency and accountability, is going down the drain. Canada is one of the richest countries in the world yet first nations people live in third world conditions. It is a shame.

The pride of the first nations is a painful embarrassment to Canada. The life expectancy of Indians is seven to eight years shorter than the national average. Suicide rates are twice the national average. Aboriginal people have an average income 75% less than the national income. Unemployment rates are 10 times the national average. School dropout rates are higher and educational attainment is lower than that of any other ethnic group in the country.

First nations reserves are rife with violence, physical and sexual abuse and suicide. Unhealthy living conditions and overcrowded housing with inefficient heating and inadequate water supplies are all too often a fact of life. First nations people are caught in a cycle of dependency and poverty. The federal government spends some $7 billion annually on aboriginal people yet their living conditions fail to improve. This is completely unacceptable. After all the billions of dollars spent over the years, most natives still live in poverty and poor living conditions, as I mentioned. It is a big problem in this country.

Reserves suffer from a lack of infrastructure. In Surrey Central the reserve on Barnston Island, next to the industrial complex, has no access to the mainland except for a ferry. Now the government has decided to start charging fares. There are dozens of other communities located on islands, served by bridges or tunnels, none of which have tolls. Why should my constituents on Barnston Island be singled out for a toll to have access to their homes? No one appears to be listening.

The government is trying to sell a bitter immigration policy with sugar coating. Front doors are completely closed and back doors continue to be open, while the revolving door installed in between continues. The pipeline is clogged with the casework of prospective immigrants. There are unreasonable delays, excuses, confusion and mismanagement. Frontline officers like custom officers need proper training and adequate resources to do their jobs effectively.

The government's priorities are wrong. Canada has continued to slip under the Liberals. The Canadian dollar has dropped by 20% since 1993. Our labour productivity, relative to the United States, has fallen by 7% since 1993 when the Liberal government took over.

According to the OECD, Canada's standard of living now ranks seventh. We are going down the road in the wrong direction. We have the highest corporate tax rate in the OECD countries at over 42%. We have the highest personal income taxes among the G-7 countries, over 21% higher than the United States. Today, Canadians are only about 70% as well off as our neighbours to the south.

While other countries race ahead, Canada is left behind in the global race in almost all major categories. The Liberals have failed to improve our economic competitiveness. They have failed to spur investment. They have failed to invest in research and development and job growth. They have failed to improve our standard of living since they took office in 1993. Why? Because they do not have a particular vision. They have misplaced priorities. They are the worst money managers in history.

The Fraser Institute highlighted another hidden tax in the form of exorbitant compliance costs to the tune of $103 billion which Canadian businesses face in terms of regulatory burden. As co-chair of the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations, I attended a conference of regulatory reform and red tape. I found out that almost all provinces were well ahead of the federal government. They are light years ahead of the federal government on regulatory reform.

This hidden tax or red tape stifles innovation, investments, productivity and thus our standard of living. Therefore we need regulatory reform. Many provinces have formulated red tape commissions. Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia are well ahead and have effectively pursued red tape reduction.

A lot needs to be done. We need to harmonize the regulations which are overlapping from department to department and government to government, in all three levels of government. We need to eliminate the duplication of regulations. It seems that the issue is not on the radar screen of the Liberal federal government. When will the government move from red tape to smart tape and from smart tape to smart government?

While talking about the economic priorities of the government, I should highlight the messed up priorities in the following areas. I know my time is short so I will just list them.

One area is infrastructure and highways. The government is raking in a huge amount of taxation on gasoline but it is not reinvesting in infrastructure development. We invest something less than 4% of the total revenue from gasoline taxes on infrastructure development. Whereas the United States invests 95% of the revenue from gasoline taxes in infrastructure development.

Another area is the mismanagement of natural resources, including minerals, oil and gas, softwood lumber, fisheries and agriculture. Our natural resources are exported as raw material. Why do we not add value to those goods? Value-added goods will create more jobs. We can finish products here and then export finished products, but it seems that the government is not concerned about these things.

Another area is the development of industry, technology and skilled labour. It has been a long time since the government has paid any attention to these things. The priorities of the government are misplaced.

Right now we have two prime ministers in the country, one by virtue of his political mandate and the other by virtue of his political muscle. As a result the Liberal caucus is split. Consequently, the government cannot make or implement plans for the country. Its policy remains vague and we continuously see flip-flopping and backtracking on major issues.

During this part of their mandate, the Liberals have clearly become preoccupied with infighting over the issue of leadership. The last budget was influenced by the leadership aspirants. I am quite sure the forthcoming budget will also be influenced by the leadership aspirants. They do not look at the priorities and needs of the country. They satisfy their own Liberal needs. As a consequence the country is suffering.

The Liberal leader in waiting has consistently stolen Canadian Alliance policy that he has half-heartedly or partially implemented. We have had the elimination of the deficit, debt reduction, tax cuts and democratic reforms. These have been on the agenda of the Canadian Alliance, and prior to that the Reform Party of Canada, for a long time. He wants to be on all sides of all issues but has no position of his own on any issue.

The government's vision is not there. Its priorities are misplaced. Money is being spent on less important projects or low priority projects. The high priority projects or those of a higher priority to Canadians, such as defence and security, are being ignored. In particular, in the month of March, the government is quite expert in throwing out money. It is called March-mania. When the budget is about to expire, the government spends as much as it can. It shows that the Liberals mismanagement and their priorities are the root causes of the problems in the country.

Therefore, I recommend that the government have real prebudget consultations with Canadians in all parts of the country. It is time the Liberals listened to Canadians and do what Canadians want, instead of what is in the best interests of the Liberal Party.

My constituents tell me that we need a complete overhaul of the government. There is serious rot in the Liberal cabinet, starting from one end of the frontbench to the other end. There is a lack of talent, a lack of ideas and a lack of vision.

Either the Liberals must listen to Canadians and do what Canadians want or get out of the way for someone else who will. Canadians certainly deserve better.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the hon. member for York West.

It is an honour to rise on the prebudget consultation debate to look at what the government has accomplished to this point and where we may go in the future.

Looking into the past it might be relatively easy for someone like myself to say steady as she goes. The previous finance minister set up a system of two year rolling targets which resulted in balanced budgets. We are headed toward six consecutive balanced budgets for which I am sure the people of Canada are quite grateful. We have been able to make a substantive dent in the national debt and to certainly free up a great deal more revenue that can be used for worthwhile purposes.

Some changes have entered into the picture this last year that cannot be ignored. However they can be complemented in the budget that is to be put before us, possibly in February.

One is health care which Canadians consider to be the single most important social issue that we have to deal with. It is one of those wonderful elements that sets us apart from our cousins to the south. In the past it has proven to be an excellent program.

Physicians who deal internationally tell me that if we want to compare Canadian medicare with other countries all we have to do is to travel to every other country in the world. We would find with all of its weaknesses that medicare in Canada still holds its own at the top or close to the top of the heap. It is not that we cannot improve, but we must improve. We must meet the needs of Canadians in the future.

We must remember that when medicare came into existence people's expectations and the technology to treat people were very different from what they are today.The cost per citizen is a very different issue than it was in the 1960s. There are things like heart bypass operations now, which almost seem like getting a wisdom tooth extracted. After five days a patient is transferred to a rehab hospital and then is back on his or her feet. The vast majority of those surgeries are very effective.

That kind of medical procedure did not exist when medical care came into existence. We have to be cognizant of that. We get far better service than we did years ago. Our physicians know more and their practices are constantly improving. We are grateful for that but we have to find the resources to match the need. That is relatively new in the system, although it has been coming on over recent years.

The other element we are going to deal with for the first time is the commitment we made with respect to the Kyoto accord. It commits Canada to lowering greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels over the next 10 years.

It is interesting to observe that when it comes to health care and the Kyoto accord, the two of them have somehow come to fit together. The elements that Canada is challenged, in the view of this humble member, seem to have been opened up and positively exposed with the passage of the Kyoto accord. I will try to detail that as best I can.

I feel that when the new budget comes out, however we call it, whether we call it a health budget, a green budget, a Kyoto budget or whatever, a lot of the elements will be tied together. This should help to make a budget that is more efficient. It will strengthen Canada's financial position rather than weaken it.

I think of Kyoto and health, for instance, as that part of the health system that we consider preventive health rather than clinical treatment. According to the Ontario Medical Association there are about 1,800 to 2,000 premature deaths in Ontario every year because of dirty air and there is a huge escalation in the incidence of childhood asthma. In Alberta's oil patch, the information I have is that the incidence of respiratory ailments is three times higher than it is in the rest of the province of Alberta.

Surely those things should say something. They should make us conscious of the fact that when we think of the need for an improved health system, we should also think of the need for improved preventive measures. One of those preventive measures will be manifested in our setting on a journey of 1,000 miles, the first step of which was the endorsation of the Kyoto accord. Therefore it is a health issue.

Kyoto also is an agriculture issue. When we think of the potential to augment our fossil fuel supplies with biofuels that can be added to the existing fossil fuels and very much reduce emissions into the atmosphere as a result, Kyoto becomes an agriculture issue. It encourages markets for farmers who have really been suffering in the last few years because of the incredible agriculture subsidies in Europe and the United States. That is another plus. Perhaps we could call it an agriculture budget.

We could call it a transportation budget because one of the objectives is to reduce emissions.

When the budget comes down, I think a lot of these issues will converge. It will allow us to bring in a budget that will strengthen all the sectors of the economy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that the member really believes that Kyoto will result in a net increase in jobs in Canada.

The statement the Liberals keep making is that it will create jobs. I do not think one could argue with that. However, the number of jobs lost will be much greater than the few jobs created. There will be a net loss of jobs which I think will be rather substantial. This is based on not a very controversial premise at all, which is that businesses will go where they can make a reasonable profit and not experience a loss.

With the recommendations that we see as to the implementation of the Kyoto protocol, it appears to me that many businesses, manufacturers, chemical plants, and the petroleum industry will move south of the border where they would not face the same onerous regulations and higher costs. With that the jobs will flee. That is inevitable.

The member may want to rethink and restate his position on that.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I remind my hon. friend that in 1994 when I co-chaired a task force on ethanol, one of the great naysayers at the time, a senior bureaucrat in the government, told the task force that there would be a loss of 4,000 jobs if 10% ethanol went into gasoline across Canada. What he failed to tell us was the rest of the study which showed that there would be a gain of 6,000 jobs.

I say to my hon. friend with great respect that the naysayers can say what they like but they are not looking at the positive side. It does take a little vision, it does take a little innovation, it does take a little imagination, but we are on our way.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the comments made by my colleague from Halton. I know that he was about to expand on how this could be a transportation budget.

If we look at greenhouse gases, 28% of greenhouse gases or thereabouts come from the transportation sector. There are many challenges. There is the need for more public transit. There are cities like Toronto with urban sprawl. There are trucks that are getting new engines that will reduce smog but will actually be less energy efficient, which runs counter to the Kyoto convention. There are a number of challenges in the transportation sector.

I wonder if the member would like to expand on why this could be a transportation budget.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are all aware that a large percentage of emissions into the atmosphere are as a result of all sorts of combustible fossil fuels in our transportation system. When that traffic is reduced and changed into other modes of transportation, naturally the emissions are reduced.

Intermodal freight traffic, in the view of this humble member, is one of the keys to the future. It will get long distance trucks off the highways and move them on to rail. I have talked to people in the trucking industry who are so enthusiastic that this be expanded. Southern Ontario has some intermodal traffic now and it will have more in the future, wherever they are located. I would say to my friend that these kinds of techniques are the way we must go.

I see an increase in urban transit and an increase in intercity transportation of people on rail particularly. We have allowed our rail system to decline in recent years. It is undergoing a revival. In the higher population areas it will revive even more quickly. I think we are making great progress.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned that health care in Canada was one of the best systems in the world. The Romanow report requests up to $15 billion in new spending and Romanow suggests we take it out of the surplus. There are increased costs coming with Kyoto. Mr. Kirby on the other hand is saying that we should increase the GST or increase the personal income taxes to pay for increased health care costs.

On health care in Canada where there is a single payer and a single service monopoly, there are no incentives for efficiency. I want to ask the member a question about that.

In Toronto, the cancer services at Sunnybrook Hospital could not get people to work in the evening. Finally the dreaded private sector stepped in. It used the same equipment and the same services and treated 1,000 patients for the same cost that 600 could be treated, but the patients got in within a week instead of waiting for six to eight weeks.

I wonder if the hon. member would not suggest there are efficiencies that can be captured by looking at how we deliver services.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are efficiencies of course and every area must be examined. What registers with me most strongly is the area of accountability. When we transfer funds to the provinces, we do not want them spending medical transfers on lawnmowers.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have a few minutes to enter into the prebudget debate today.

I would like to address a number of important areas but I will focus my remarks on the issues I feel are critical for the future of Canada and for all Canadians. I am speaking, of course, for those who know me, about the urban regions, about our cities and about investing in programs that will help to build a solid economic foundation for the future and will provide sustainability in key areas.

Budgets are about choices, about investments, about people and about choosing priorities. The choices we make will determine how well and how wisely we should build a country of the future. The budget and the work we do in the House is also about nation building, about working together to secure our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. It is also about the values and principles that we share as a nation and about Canada's place in the world.

As many in the House know, the Prime Minister's caucus task force on urban issues released its interim report in May and the final in November. In those reports we called for a national urban strategy for Canada. Members may want to know why.

Urban regions are often referred to as the economic engines of our country and we must ensure that they maintain that position. The pressures on our urban regions are enormous. To name a few: housing, transit, an aging infrastructure, pollution, the need for safe drinking water, job skills and training. The Government of Canada currently invests billions of dollars already in those areas but clearly there is a need for more investment.

I was delighted when the Standing Committee on Finance in its report acknowledged the work of the task force and recommended a long term, adequately funded infrastructure program with an initial focus on transportation, water and sewage deficiencies.

Both the task force and the standing committee agree that infrastructure funding must be allocated on a strategic, as needed basis, not on a per capita basis. We have to look at the needs in all communities, whether they are large or small, rural or urban. Requirements differ as do priorities in regional development.

I understand the many pressures we have on our budget. We continually hear about health care issues, the need for more money to go into defence, Kyoto, support for our universities, early childhood education, demands for increased pension support for those who are the working poor and our seniors who are in difficulty. Balancing the pressures that we have to face as a federal government, we also have to look at the equal pressures of the provinces and the cities. We are all trying to make the tough decisions that ensure that political accountability is there at the same time that we are investing in ways we think are the priorities for the country to build and be strong and healthy.

I believe we must start with investing in our social infrastructure and human capital. In our reports we recommended three national programs: housing, transit and infrastructure. We believe these three programs are vital to the sustainability of our urban regions.

Let us take housing first. We committed $680 million over five years to an affordable housing program, cost shared with the provinces. The throne speech also announced an interest in an extension of the program in areas where the needs are the greatest. What we believe as a task force is that we need to have a national permanent affordable housing program, one that is more sustainable and more strategic, one that explores all possibilities. There are far too many families in too many cities in Canada waiting for affordable housing. Here in Ottawa we know that more than 15,000 families are on a waiting list and in Toronto there are over 50,000 people on a waiting list.

We all have a responsibility to ensure that we have affordable housing for people in this country. Many families in the country earn $20,000 to $22,000 a year and if they have to pay 50% to 60% of that just for accommodation alone it clearly leaves them in a constant level of poverty.

We would like to see some tax changes and incentives from CMHC to include the private sector, particularly in seniors housing where the real needs are very critical. Our current legislation is falling short in many areas when it comes to the issues of seniors.

Seniors living in Toronto can wait up to 10 years for affordable housing. There are currently 647,000 seniors across Canada who are living below the poverty line. We simply cannot allow that situation to continue. Again, we go back to having to establish priorities, to live within our budget and to ensure that we do not find ourselves going into debt again.

Another area in which we must continue to invest is transit and transportation. In our reports we show what the government is currently doing. I want to acknowledge that the Government of Canada is doing good things in those areas; important investments in highways and border crossings and railway infrastructure.

The throne speech acknowledged the need for a safe, efficient and environmentally responsible transportation system within the 10 year infrastructure program. That is another good positive. However all of this will have to be established against the dollars that we have, the needs that are there and how much we can do within our own budget.

However, I am concerned that we need to find ways to overcome some of those roadblocks. Transit and transportation is the lifeblood for urban regions and indeed the thread that links this country from coast to coast. About one-half of Canada's economy comes from agriculture to manufacturing to tourism. It all depends on transportation. It is a huge figure we cannot ignore.

We are the only country in the G-7 without a national transportation program. If we do not establish those kinds of programs in the good times, how will we do it when the times get tough? That again is another priority pressing on our budget.

We must make sure we move goods and people efficiently, safely and comfortably, connecting regions and rural areas to the urban centres and the downtown cores. It will take much more investment on the part of this government, as well as provincial and municipal governments, to ensure Canada's transportation systems are sustainable.

The third program is to address urban infrastructure. Our report highlights the government's investment through Infrastructure Canada, the strategic infrastructure fund and others. These are important, successful and necessary programs, but again, we need and can do much more.

Investing in roads, water and sewage treatment plants, bridges and physical infrastructure will improve the quality of life in our urban regions as well as assisting our municipal governments. As the throne speech stated, infrastructure is the key to prosperity in urban Canada. These include investments as well in looking at brown field remediation, restoration of heritage properties and a number of other land use and fiscal measures.

My final point is to touch on education, skills and learning, another integral part of nation building. Forty per cent of adults are currently functionally illiterate in Canada. In this knowledge based economy we must attract the brightest and the best to where the jobs are, so urbanization is a 21st century reality that we need to address.

Nation building involves investments in many areas but is a collective responsibility for all of us in government in Canada to ensure that those needs are met, for instance, in health care, in education, in Kyoto and in the quality of life for Canadians. All of these are areas that will bind our country together, that will allow us to express the values in which we believe, how we see ourselves and how we can show ourselves to the rest of the world. I hope we are prepared to make the right choices.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what the hon. member had to say. I know she has done lots of work as the chair of the Liberal task force on urban affairs. I am glad to hear her talk about the need for a permanent affordable housing program in this country. I am glad to hear her speak about the need for infrastructure funding for our municipalities and for public transit funding.

The concern I have is that, although I have heard this many times before from the task force, from individual government members and even from ministers, it never translates into the kind of funding stability on which our municipalities can rely.

One of the problems is that there is no minister who is actually responsible for urban affairs. It is scattered all over the place, partly through infrastructure, through crown corporations, through housing and so on. If this is seen as an issue where the federal government needs to take leadership in working with the provinces to provide the funds, then it seems to me that there needs to be a minister who has clear responsibility and a mandate for urban affairs, because 80% of Canadians live in the urban environment.

I wonder if the hon. member would comment on whether she would agree with that and whether she would agree with funding for public transit. One of the things that is really an outrage is the amount of money that the federal government takes out of gasoline taxes and does not put back into funding public transit. In my own city of Vancouver we have had terrible problems with financing public transit because so much money is going out in gasoline tax and is not coming back into the local community. I wonder if the member would comment on those two things.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the whole issue of dedicated taxes is something that I believe most of our provincial governments and, clearly from what I have heard, at the federal government level, are cautious about getting into. One of the arguments I have heard is that if we started dedicating a certain amount of taxes to go into one area, for instance transportation, we could end up with a huge war chest in transportation. In the meantime, our medical system, our hospitals and so on, which is crying out for money, would not get the money it needed.

My understanding is that finance ministers throughout the country want that flexibility. I tend to agree with them. We do need the flexibility to move money around to where it is most needed within the certain priorities of a government.

At the end of the day what our cities need is money. Whether they get it in the dedicated form of a gas tax, all that money comes into the government and we have to reallocate it out there. It is not that it is not going back, it is just not going back in a specific area that they would like to see it go into. A lot of money that is going into the transportation programs that we currently have, is going into those very areas to which the hon. member has referred.

I would suggest to the member that our report covers a variety of the issues that she mentioned. She can download it from our website or call the office and I would be glad to ensure that she gets a copy of it.

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the hon. member, who has just addressed urban issues at the request of the NDP member. I would just like to point out that the municipalities fall under provincial jurisdiction.

I would, however, take advantage of this opportunity to ask her whether she agrees with the federal government's reinvesting in health at the level recommended by Mr. Romanow, that is a minimum of 25%, or some $6 billion.

Does she agree with this?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I might reiterate that throughout our report and all the work we do when we talk of urban issues, we constantly respect jurisdictional issues and our Constitution. We try to work together with the provinces and cities as partners to deliver the services that we need.

With regard to his question on the Romanow report, we would all like to see as much money as possible go into health but I go back to the issue of having to balance our priorities. If we were to relate that to our own house, we know how much money we have coming in during a year and we know our expenditures. What we have to figure out is how to balance them off.

We do not have a big war chest full of dollars that we can pump into one area or the other. We have to be responsible in how we recognize our priorities, how we allocate the funding and how we work these issues out together.

[Charlie Penson, Canadian Alliance, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made some interesting comments. Being from Toronto, she will know that Canada's productivity versus that of the United States has slipped very badly in the last 25 years. Twenty-five years ago the United States was number one in terms of productivity and Canada was number two. We have now slipped to eighth place. In other words, our standard of living has dropped significantly. That is a factor because not only are we trading partners but we are competitors with the United States.

I want the hon. member to take into account the border security issues. If a new automotive plant was about to locate in Canada and it was looking for a place to locate and make a big investment, it would take into account things like border slowdowns. Some 80% of automotive production goes into the United States. They would also take into account whether it could get a return on investment here. What would the energy costs of Kyoto would be. If the United States is not a part of that plan and Canada is, then energy costs could be higher in Canada. How does that serve us to increase investment in Canada, try to get back some of the competitive edge, if we are moving in the opposite direction to the United States in terms of things like Kyoto which will impose huge costs on Canadian industry in Ontario?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we can look at our innovation agenda and the work we are doing on moving forward to ensure that we have the skills necessary in our country to prepare for the future. We can talk about the quality of the workforce, and many U.S. based companies currently in Canada often tell us that the workforce here is excellent, that it has the skills they need. When we are talking about the differences between U.S. and Canada, we have to take into account health care costs. When they measure it up, it is better for them to be doing business here with the kind of health care program we have rather than trying to pay for it in the U.S., where it is a huge cost to have health care.