Mr. Speaker, in case my colleague from Prince Albert does not get a chance to mention more about Grant Devine, I will. I am originally from Saskatchewan as well and as I travelled from Manitoba into Saskatchewan during the Grant Devine years, I literally watched a province die. In small rural community towns like Melfort, Kinistino, Tisdale, businesses were closing left, right and centre. There was a sell-off of the highways department. Saskatchewan had the worst roads in the country under the Devine era. There was debt after debt. It was a corrupt government absolutely.
I often said I did not know what the NDP would do when it got back into power because it had a mess to clean up and by God, it has cleaned it up. The NDP does its darndest to balance the budget and does its darndest to provide services to its citizens, a good many of whom are my relatives. I will vouch for the fact that it is not easy, but I understand where the NDP is coming from because it had to clean up a huge mess in Saskatchewan.
Obviously Grant Devine stirs up passion in us because it was such a corrupt government in Saskatchewan. It was one of those shameful moments. We all have our shameful moments at different points that we have to relate to, and the one I have is knowing that Saskatchewan actually had such a corrupt government after having had such great governments in the past under Romanow, Douglas and Blakeney. They were wonderful governments and then Saskatchewan was stuck with someone like Grant Devine. I only hope if he is deciding to run in an upcoming election, that citizens in that area consider the type of member of Parliament they have had before as compared to Grant Devine.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the Speech from the Throne today. A number of comments have been made already about the omissions from the throne speech and the concerns we have as a result of those omissions. We cannot help but wonder what the agenda is when there is no mention of certain facets within the throne speech.
This may be the first time there has been absolutely no mention of seniors in the throne speech, the people who built our country, the people who suffer the greatest with the cuts to medicare. Seniors have suffered some of the greatest trials with cuts to the medicare system. There was no mention of what we are going to do to improve the lives of seniors, to improve their incomes by increasing their pensions and the OAS. There was nothing like that. My colleague from the Bloc will be happy because there was no comment about retroactivity on the GIS payments. There was nothing there.
The forgotten people of Canada were the seniors, the people who built our country. There was no mention of them.
There was also no mention of home care or pharmacare services for seniors. If we have to start somewhere, why not start with seniors by making sure we provide them with those services? The people who have built our country are now in their vulnerable years and what are we doing? There was not a mention, but there was certainly mention of corporations and tax cuts and making sure we stick to those tax cuts. That was in there for sure.
It was interesting to note that there was no mention of Romanow. Of course if it had mentioned the Romanow report, it would have had to mention home care and pharmacare and additional supports within the health care field, such as the 25% federal government responsibility within health care so it can be brought up to some semblance of what it was at some point. Even Monique Bégin, the former Liberal health minister, strongly supported an increase in funding. I recall her saying at one time that it should be at least 50%. Romanow was not even saying that; he was saying we should start at 25% and work up.
If we are not going to continue paying for a universal health care system in Canada, what are we saying? Are we saying to heck with the people around us, that they pay for their own health care?
Are we going back to the way it used to be when the doctor checked the health of the cow before he saw the patient because he would be paid with the cow? That was the reality of health care in Canada. If someone could not afford to pay, the doctor might get the cow or something else. That was the reality.
Is that what Canada is? Is that the progressive step the Liberal government wants to take? I sincerely hope not.
I listened to the right hon. Prime Minister yesterday. In his comments about the throne speech, he talked about travelling the country for a year listening to Canadians. Quite frankly, he did not have to travel the country for a year to listen to Canadians to find out what to do on health care. The Romanow commission did that very thoroughly and came up with an excellent report that got no support from the Liberal government.
The Prime Minister should have been honest. He travelled the country and was listening to Liberal leadership backers. That was it. Let us at least be honest with Canadians. If he did not listen to seniors who were totally left out of the throne speech, then he did not listen to Canadians. Seniors have been very clear on what they need in order to have fruitful lives in their senior years. They were extremely disappointed that there was absolutely no mention of the seniors in Canada in the throne speech.
Again, to comment on what is mentioned in relation to aboriginal Canadians, I would suggest quite readily that everyone, including the aboriginal people of Canada, get a copy of the other throne speeches from the Internet. I want people to compare what has been said about aboriginal Canadians in this throne speech to the ones that go back 10, 15 or 20 years. People would be hard pressed to find much difference.
We are going to promise to make things better economically. We are going to promise to improve the education of kids on reserves. We are going to promise to improve the infrastructure, the water and sewers. We are going to promise to improve the housing. We are going to get everyone out of poverty. All of that was there 10 years ago and the government has done nothing to address those issues. Nothing.
It is not okay just to put the words in the throne speech. It is not okay just to say we are going to have this wonderful program and put this much money in when what we do on the other side is say, “If you cannot give us this much money as well, we are not going to give you any”. We all know that the communities have a hard time funding a lot of their programs because they only have so much money to work with.
Another area which is greatly disappointing in the throne speech is education, lifelong learning. One of the staff in my office was extremely disappointed because she is recently out of university. She was talking to me about the student loans and what it is like. Her comment was, “Yes, lifelong learning and a life sentence of paying the debt from that learning”. This is nothing, suggesting that we can put more money into loans, suggesting that we are going to make it easier for lower income families to access the loans and to put money into RRSPs. When I heard the Prime Minister say that the low income people can put more money into RRSPs, what it reminded me of, and he is not going to like this I am sure because I am going to compare him to Marie Antoinette who said that if they don't have food, let them eat cake.
It is just not acceptable to say “You low income people living on $25,000 or $30,000 a year who are paying for your rent, your hydro, your food and everything else, you are just falling short by not being able to put money into an RESP for your child”. When they cannot afford to live day by day, it is not acceptable.
What would be acceptable? I am not suggesting that we give students something for nothing, even though I think that would be ideal. We would benefit as a country if they could get an education and everyone who had aspirations to be a doctor or a teacher would not have to worry about being able to pay the money back for 10, 15 or 20 years. It would be great if we could do that. We would not have some of the shortages that we have because there would be more opportunities.
We should at least have low to no interest loans for students. Do not hold them to bankruptcy rules for the rest of their lives, and it seems to be that way sometimes. Give them a real opportunity. Give them the supports because it is not acceptable the way we are doing it now.
Quite frankly, here in Ottawa the Canadian Federation of Students spoke loud and clear. The students are doing that throughout the country. This is not good enough. I hope they come out loud and clear in the upcoming election and tell the government that this is not good enough, that it has to come through for Canadians. It cannot just give big corporations tax cuts, and I am saying big corporations because those tax breaks are not acceptable when others have to pay their way. If the government can do that, then surely it can invest in the future of Canada, because the future is there.