Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the budget implementation act debate. Not having had a chance to participate in the budget debate itself, it is good to have an opportunity to participate in this.
I have listened to the debate over the last number of weeks on this issue and have watched the chest pounding from the government side of the House about what a tremendous budget this is and how it is a major step toward, in their words, building the kind of Canada we want. It always shocks me when members of the Liberal government use that kind of rhetoric. The kind of Canada they appear to be building is not really the kind of Canada I want. I do not know how they feel they speak for Canada when they make those kind of statements.
If the government were a corporation and the cost of servicing the debt of that corporation was the single largest expenditure, it would probably make Air Canada's financial situation right now look pretty attractive. Essentially the government in the last number of years seems to have abandoned the whole focus on the debt and debt servicing and has turned to increased spending.
As some of my colleagues said earlier, I do not how the government could possibly justify, given the economic times we face today, bringing in a budget with a 20% increase in government spending. To me that seems to be absolutely irresponsible combined with the fact that the debt is still hanging over our heads like a black cloud. If inflation were to increase or we were to move into a recessionary period, that debt could once again threaten the very viability of the country.
I really have concerns about the whole direction of the budget and the return to the old style Liberal spending with no regard for future generations or for the consequences of that spending.
Specifically to deal with the budget issue, I would like to focus a little on the areas for which I as the critic for natural resources for the Canadian Alliance am responsible. There are a number of areas of the budget that are very relevant to my critic area.
The issue that seems to prevail in this debate, and the debate in the last couple of weeks in the House, is our relationship to the United States and the harm to that relationship. It is not so much the decision not to send troops in support of the coalition to Iraq but rather the anti-Americanism and the remarks flying around in and outside the House about the Americans, and the Liberal attitude toward the Americans.
On the issue of natural resources and energy, our economy depends on our relationship with the United States and must continue to depend on it. I can understand why there is not much regard for that issue by the Liberal government. Energy exports to the United States are primarily from western Canada, although there are electrical energy exports in central Canada. Primarily fossil fuel energy in western Canada would not really be of a concern to the Liberal government, and I think that is a given.
Considering how important the auto industry in Ontario is to its economy, I am amazed the Ontario members of Parliament are jeopardizing that industry and the survival and viability of it by those kind of comments. That is certainly relevant to this debate and needs repeating over and over again. Hopefully the government will see the light on that issue.
There were a couple of other areas that were relevant. One of them, which was addressed in the budget, was the issue of how the resource industries were treated on corporate taxation and the bringing in line of the rate of that taxation with other industries in Canada. For whatever reason, and I have never quite been able to understand why, the government decided to reduce the corporate tax rate from 28% to 21% for all industries in Canada, exempting the natural resource industries.
There was some reference to other programs and treatments of the resource industries that compensated for the tax reduction other industries got. I do not think it is a valid argument at all. The resource industries have long had what they refer to as the resource depletion allowance, which is simply a compensation program for the costs of provincial resource royalties that resource industries pay to the provinces. That is not a giveaway or a subsidy. It is simply a recognition of the impact on a resource company's bottom line of paying provincial royalties. The cost of provincial royalties comes right off the bottom line of any company and therefore hardly can be considered a subsidy or a giveaway to that industry. I do not accept that argument as being valid.
We have heard much criticism, particularly from the greener members across the way, about accelerated depreciation allowance and some of those other programs that apply in the resource industries. While those programs are designed to encourage growth in those industries, for example in the tar sands or in the mining industry, programs like flow-through shares and those kinds of treatments are specifically designed as tax incentives to encourage that growth. They hardly can be considered to replace the resource industries receiving that tax reduction program to 21%. We have to look at each industry that receives those benefits and judge whether that industry continues to need the incentive, or if the industry has matured to the point where that incentive is no longer valid and should be reviewed. However it has nothing to do with the overall tax rate.
I was very disappointed in this budget to see that the government decided to allow the resource industries the corporate tax reduction to 21%, but at the same time it took away the resource depletion allowance and proposed to somehow replace it with some another form of taxation.
I was very disappointed with the government's failure in any way to address the issue of the sale of federal government shares in Petro-Canada and Hibernia. The government, as any government, has no business of being in the business of business and retaining that. We could have garnered some substantial benefit to help some of these other issues like the climate change initiative and all the rest of it.
The other area, which continues to be a thorn in our side, is the issue of Kyoto and another $1.5 billion on top of the almost $2 billion already announced for the Kyoto protocol. We still have no substantive plan in place to deal with it, other than millions of dollars of national television advertising to convince Canadians it is the right thing to do.
Overall this is a pretty sad effort and a pretty pathetic budget in terms of benefits to Canadians. The government could have done much better.