Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-49 regarding the budget, which was a great disappointment to many Canadians. On the day after he introduced the budget the finance minister stated during question period in the House:
--what is important in a budget is the way...it is received by the public.
We should all be disappointed by a finance minister who believes that public opinion and focus group economics is the way to govern a country when sometimes the most important and best decisions for the long term good of a country are not always the most popular decisions. I am speaking of decisions like free trade, the deregulation of financial services, transportation and energy, all of which were controversial and many of which were not popular. Even the replacement of the manufacturers sales tax, which was the euphemistic way of introducing the unpopular GST, was not popular but has proven to be the right policy down the road.
Canadians have paid a significant price for this type of government that focuses on polls and focus groups and does not have a vision or the wisdom and foresight to make the types of decisions which will improve the lives of Canadians well into this century.
Let us look at the budget from the perspective of the finance minister's statement, “what is important in a budget is the way it is received by the public”. The public includes Canadian farmers who have spoken out loud and clear on the budget. They were as disappointed as all Canadians and as they have been with every budget the finance minister has introduced by the fact that the minister and the government have failed to deal adequately with the crisis facing farmers across Canada.
There is a view in the federal department of agriculture that if something is not raised or grown in the west it is not agriculture. As the member of parliament for the riding of Kings--Hants where 50% of all the agricultural products of Nova Scotia are produced, with a larger output of agricultural product than the entire province of Prince Edward Island, I urge the department and the government to take seriously issues of agriculture which have not been dealt with properly by the government. It has failed to recognize the important contribution made by Canadian farmers to the lives of all Canadians.
The budget failed to deal with the crisis the Canadian military is facing. Even in a pre-September 11 context our Canadian military had been starved of resources. In the budget the government did not deal with the crisis that existed in military funding pre-September 11. If we add to this difficulty and the stretching of scarce resources the September 11 imperatives, the new security imperatives, and the increased levels of duty and tasks added to our Canadian armed forces, clearly the budget does not come close to addressing these needs. It was supposed to be a security budget and it did not even address those issues.
Numerous presentations were made to the House of Commons finance committee by the non-profit sector urging a permanent elimination of the capital gains tax on gifts of publicly listed securities. In the budget the government made permanent a reduction to the capital gains tax on publicly listed securities, but that was a baby step in the right direction. The Canadian philanthropic sector, Canadian charities whether a university foundation, the United Way or a hospital foundation, is at a competitive disadvantage when competing with funds currently being drawn to places in the U.S. and the U.K.
The government has not worked with the non-profit sector to make it easier for Canadian institutions, the non-profit sector, universities, hospitals, foundations and charities to raise money that is necessary, particularly during a period of decreased federal and provincial funding.
Even with the minister's view that we should judge budgets based on public opinion the budget was a gross failure. Probably the most damning gauge by which to evaluate the budget is what the international markets have said about it and about the performance of the government.
Under the government the Canadian dollar has lost 20% of its value against the U.S. dollar. The Prime Minister's response is typically that this is not really a problem and a low dollar is good for exports. If we think about the logical corollary of the Prime Minister's arguments and follow his flawed logic, by reducing the Canadian dollar to zero Canada could be the greatest export nation in the world.
Another argument that the Prime Minister makes about the Canadian dollar is that although we are doing badly against the U.S. dollar we are doing well against other currencies. He is right. Our dollar is doing better than the ruble at this time. All we have to do is wait, because we have lost 15% against the British pound and we have lost significantly against the Mexican peso.
A 20% drop in the value of the Canadian dollar represents a pay cut to every Canadian, a drop in our standard of living and a reflection of the fact that Canadians are getting poorer as Americans are getting richer under the watch of the government.
Last week the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance went to New York for a couple of days. During the period of time they were out of the country the dollar improved marginally. Since they have returned, however, the dollar has dropped again.
I would suggest that the government seriously consider sending the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance out of the country for about 30 days. Based on that performance, if they stayed out of the country for 30 days the Canadian dollar might ascend to the level at which it rested prior to the government taking power in 1993. Maybe the answer is to get the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister out of the country.
If they are not here they certainly will not be able to direct funding to departments and misguided spending programs where it ought not to be going. They will not be able to spend money in one of the sixteen departments the auditor general described as having out of control spending.
When the finance minister was given an opportunity to reduce spending in some key areas he did not take that opportunity at all. He did not cut one area in a $130 billion budget. No one is saying that the finance minister should be cutting in health care, the military or agriculture, the prime areas he ought to be investing more in.
However there are areas of government waste. There is no member on either side of the House who does not realize in his or her heart there are areas of government spending which do not reflect the priorities, the needs, the values and the long term interests of Canadians.
This is not an esoteric debate we are making as people with so much money that we do not have to worry about how we balance the budget. Based on U.K., U.S. and German accounting standards the fact is that Canada is in a deficit right now.
Based on our own accounting standards Canada is sliding toward a deficit position next year. This year the government provided not a tax break but a deferred corporate tax benefit to next year. Why did it do that? Did it do that to be nice to people? Did the government do it to try to help corporate Canada? If it were interested in doing that it probably would have applied it in some way that would have benefited mom and pop operations and would have been more broadly based.
The government did it for one reason and that was to avoid the stark reality of being in a deficit next year. The only thing that is keeping Canada out of a deficit position right now is Liberal leadership politics. A stark fear exists on government benches that because of its lax spending and the fact that it has not monitored spending it will slide back into a deficit. It wants to avoid that reality.
In terms of health care there is a health care crisis in every province in Canada. We cannot blame provincial governments for the health care crisis in Canada.
The blame belongs squarely on the desk of the Prime Minister and on the desk of the Minister of Finance who have cut transfers to the provinces. In an unprecedented cruel way they have put provinces in a position where they have not had the resources to meet their basic needs. The provinces are now paying 85% to 88% of health care costs. When medicare was first introduced the federal government was actually paying 50%. Now it is down to 10%, 12% or 15% depending on the province, to a point where a province like Nova Scotia is now facing a health care crisis, a province that does not have the tax base of Alberta or Ontario. A province like Nova Scotia is hit disproportionately hard by these types of cutbacks.
That is why provincial governments are in such a difficult position trying to keep clinics and hospitals open. The waiting lists for surgery and treatment have grown well beyond what anyone considers acceptable. The blame belongs squarely on the government which has not only failed to respond in every budget prior to this one but has disappointed all Canadians concerned about health care in the latest budget.
If the government were serious about addressing some of the real challenges facing Canada in this century, a century during which Canadians will face an even greater rate of change and challenge than they have faced in the last century, I would posit that the government would have used the budget to strengthen our health care system, to strengthen our commitment to agriculture, to rationalize spending in other departments, to find areas of government waste where it could have reduced some of that spending and to address the fundamental issue plaguing Canadians, the Canadian dollar.
The Canadian dollar should be a source of pride for Canadians, not a source of embarrassment. The Canadian dollar should not be a joke. It is really terrible when our friends and family in the U.S. talk to us about how they are being paid in American dollars and laugh at us. The Canadian dollar is more than just a bread and butter or nuts and bolts issue. It is a symbol of Canada.
Earlier today we were speaking in the House in honour of Queen Elizabeth whose face graces our Canadian dollar. What an embarrassment that we honour Queen Elizabeth in the House yet we embarrass her by failing to introduce the types of economic policies that would strengthen the dollar bill upon which her face is placed.
If we are serious about honouring Queen Elizabeth and the Canadian dollar, we ought to introduce a productivity agenda. That means tax reform focused on productivity. That means regulatory reform focused on productivity. That means the rationalization of spending focused on the types of initiatives that would lead to the long term success and prosperity of Canadians.
I recognize education for very important reasons is under provincial jurisdiction in Canada, but by restoring transfers to the provinces to the levels at which they ought to be the federal government could help significantly in terms of ensuring that all Canadians have the opportunity to obtain an adequate education. Not only has health care been devastated by the cuts of the federal government but our education system has as well.