Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the tenth budget of a tired, old and corrupt Liberal regime.
It is a Liberal regime mired in scandal. It is a Liberal regime wishing to shake itself of the past. It is a Liberal regime that cannot be trusted to manage our public funds.
There is little in this budget, but this budget tried to make one claim. It tried to make the claim that the government can be trusted to manage public funds, but what is the reality?
We have continued record spending levels, not even spending directed simply to the public good. We have a government that has been exposed as ripping off taxpayers in scandal after scandal. The government has been exposed as wasting dollars in program after program. This budget will change none of those things. Ottawa remains knee deep in cash, keeping its padded estimates, masking its hidden surpluses well into the future.
Only a few short years ago the Government of Canada had projected program spending of just a little over $100 billion. Today this budget projects program spending well over $150 billion. It is an increase of 50% in only a few short years.
There is no return of tax dollars to overtaxed Canadians and their families, no reduction in onerous tax levels. The pledge to do better with management in the future is an empty one. It is empty because the government and the Prime Minister have had 10 years to do better. He was the one writing the cheques for the sponsorship scandal. He was the one writing the cheques for the HRDC boondoggle. He was the one writing the cheques for the useless gun registry. His promises to clean up this mess are simply not credible. He had his chance and he missed his chance.
This government has had ten years to show us what a good financial manager it is. This very Prime Minister has had eight budgets with which to bring in improvements to the way public funds are being managed, but has done nothing.
In previous budget speeches, he kept telling us that he had public spending under control. Yet now, as Prime Minister, he is telling us he had no idea of what was going on in the sponsorship scandal.
This is the 10th budget of the tired, old Liberal government. The first eight budgets were delivered, as Canadians know, by the current Prime Minister himself. Before turning my attention to today's budget, I want to take a small detour through some of those earlier budgets.
In those earlier budgets, the Prime Minister was finance minister at the time and took full responsibility for the spending program of the government. The message in those budgets was clear: the finance minister was in control of taxpayers' dollars.
In his 1995 budget speech, the current Prime Minister said the following, and I am going to quote at length:
The government has just introduced a new and much tighter system to manage its spending.... For the first time, departments will have to prepare business plans for three years forward.... That transparency and that accountability will mark a major departure from the past.... Individual ministers are being asked to alter their funding approach accordingly. They will be held accountable for their decisions and those decisions will be reviewed annually.
Reviewed annually, one can only assume, by the Minister of Finance, or at least by Treasury Board, of which the Minister of Finance was the vice-chair.
The year 1995 was significant because that was the year the Liberal government nearly lost the country. That was also the year in which the Liberal government decided to create the sponsorship program. Let me repeat that. The year that the Liberals created the sponsorship program was also the year in which the current Prime Minister put in place “a new and much tighter system to manage its spending”.
Most Canadians remember 1995 as the year in which the government cut billions of dollars from the health care system. Let me repeat and emphasize that as well. The year that the Liberals created the sponsorship program was also the year in which the current Prime Minister massively cut spending on health care.
The 1995 budget put forward four priorities. The very first priority was “the reform of government programs and procedures, to eliminate waste and abuse and ensure value” for the taxpayer's dollar. That promise was repeated in his 1996 budget speech:
If there is one area where we must never let up, it is the effort to root out waste and inefficiency.
In his 1998 budget speech he said, “The battle to root out waste and inefficiency can never end”. Apparently it can never begin either.
Let me rephrase all of that. The year in which the Liberals created the sponsorship program was also the year in which the current Prime Minister first vowed to root out waste and abuse of taxpayers' dollars. Now this budget once again tries to establish the government as “prudent managers”.
The government has made a number of recommendations to tighten spending. It wants to re-establish the office of the comptroller general. Canadians are rightly asking, does that mean there is not one now? The answer is no, there is not one, because the current Prime Minister permanently cut that office in his first budget as finance minister.
The government wants to appoint professionally accredited comptrollers. Canadians are rightly asking, does that mean they are not accredited now? The answer is no, because the Prime Minister never thought it necessary to establish them.
The government wants to bolster the audit function. It wants real time information systems and it wants “public disclosure of contracts”. All Canadians should rightly ask, does that mean the government does not have any of these things today? The answer is no, it does not, because the Prime Minister never thought it necessary when he was finance minister.
Why should Canadians believe any of these promises when the Prime Minister had 10 years mainly as finance minister to make them happen?
The Prime Minister cannot have it both ways. He cannot claim on the one hand to have a tight rein on spending, and at the same time, not created the most elementary spending control mechanisms that these scandals have finally driven the government to recommend.
The Prime Minister cannot have it both ways. He cannot claim on the one hand to have reformed government programs, to have eliminated waste and abuse, and at the same time claim that he had absolutely no idea that $100 million had been shovelled into the hands of his Liberal friends. That is exactly what the Prime Minister is saying today.
Let me quote from some of his more recent statements. On February 10 he said, “I had no idea what was going on here”. On February 11, “I didn't know anything about it”. On February 16, “Did I know that people were kiting cheques, that people were making payments that were inappropriate, did I know all of those things? The answer is absolutely not. I did not know that”.
These claims to ignorance and innocence are no more believable coming from the Prime Minister than they are coming from Alfonso Gagliano.
The Prime Minister would like to think he represents change, but that is far from the truth. This Prime Minister had 10 years to keep his promises to create an independent ethics commissioner, to hold more free votes, to have a better infrastructure program to meet the needs of our municipalities, and so on. This Prime Minister has missed his opportunity to do all this, and does not deserve a second chance.
Yesterday's budget continues the theme put forward by the Prime Minister in his speech in Quebec City last week. The Liberals want Canadians to believe that they represent change. “Trust me”, says the Prime Minister, usually with some reference to hell or high water. I am going to say it is appropriate that the only theological references from the Liberals are to hell.
Why should Canadians trust the Liberal government? For 10 years the Liberal government has refused to create a genuinely independent ethics commissioner. For 10 years the Liberal government has failed to give its members free votes. For 10 years the Liberal government has failed to allow Parliament the review of appointments. For 10 years the Liberal government has failed to prudently spend Canada's tax dollars. For 10 years the government has failed to deliver municipal infrastructure programs that adequately meet the needs of our communities. For 10 years the government has failed to clean up contaminated sites, like the Sydney tar ponds. I could go on and on.
Those are just some of the promises made by the Liberals repeatedly, made in the first Liberal red book in 1993, made in that book written by the current Prime Minister himself.
Promises of change from the Prime Minister are no more believable today than they were 10 years ago. He had his chance. He missed his chance. That is why Canadians should not believe any of the promises made in the budget. Let me touch briefly on some of the items in the budget.
The budget tries to present the government as a good financial manager. But nothing is changed concerning the Firearms Registry. Government members will continue to fly about in new jets while the army puts up with its old helicopters. The government wants to talk about cleaning up government spending, to hide the amounts wasted in the past 10 years.
The budget makes some positive promises about health care and education, but they are hardly any more than old promises recycled from previous years.
The budget supports more federal interference in provincial jurisdictions, in particular with respect to municipalities. There is no money for the army, no end to the employment insurance scam and, above all, no tax relief for Canadians and their families.
The government has made promises to clean up spending if the Canadian people re-elect it. This promise is little more than empty rhetoric. There are no plans to scrap the gun registry. There are no plans to reduce corporate welfare. The government is still flying around in brand new jets while the military has to make do with dilapidated helicopters.
The Liberals want Canadians to believe they are good managers simply because they balanced the budget. They want Canadians to trust their fiscal management of money, even though they continue to pad the budget with future spending without any controls. The government has a dismal record of fiscal management, and no amount of balanced budgets will gloss over the sponsorship scandal, the gun registry, the HRDC boondoggle, and I could go on and on.
To repeat, it was the current Prime Minister who finished off the comptroller functions of government in 1994. In 1995 the Prime Minister promised a program review, yet he would have us believe that the sponsorship scandal somehow escaped his attention during that review.
The government is no more likely today to clean up spending than it was likely to eliminate the GST in 1993. This is just empty rhetoric to hide the lack of real action to eliminate waste. The EI rip-off will continue with this government. The overspending on the gun registry will continue, and the government creates a tremendous amount of room for the spending scandals of the future. Government spending is still rising at record rates. Spending this year will double the growth in our economy and our population, just as it has over the past several years.
Spending is rising as it has been, but outcomes are not changing. Our taxes are still too high. Our competitiveness is falling behind. Our waiting lines are not shrinking. Our students are still piling up debt. Our soldiers are dangerously under-equipped. The government continues to hide large surpluses and then blow them in end of year bonanzas, and the budget continues exactly this kind of practice.
There is a better way. That better way is to return some of these massive surpluses to Canadians and their families in the form of tax reductions. We should be putting more money in the pockets of hard-working taxpayers, not in the pockets of advertising firms.
What is the government's approach to tax relief? Nothing. Well, not quite nothing, there is one thing: soldiers, military personnel in danger zones can have tax relief. First, we will be interested to see how much money we have to spend to define a danger zone. We have inadequately equipped soldiers who are under fire, with their lives in danger, wearing the wrong coloured uniforms. They can have tax relief. What kind of message is the government sending? Only when their lives are in danger, or worse yet, only when the danger is complicated by their government, can they expect tax relief. By the time they get to that point, they are really not very worried about the taxes they are paying anyway.
The government is at least setting a debt to GDP ratio for reducing the debt. Interest costs are still a burden on our public finances and services and the debt must be reduced so that those interest costs can fall. Can those promises be believed? I would urge the government to copy other governments in Canada by putting a legislative debt reduction plan; to put its promise into legislation so that it can be held to it.
On health care, the government is repeating the promise to provide an additional $2 billion for health care. It is also moving forward on the establishment of a Canadian public health agency. These are developments the Conservatives support. However, I have to ask why the public health agency is taking so long. It has been well over a year since SARS hit Canada, yet the Liberals have yet to appoint a chief public health officer or to start to create the new agency.
The same can be said about the health accord signed with the provinces. While we continue to support the health accord, I am increasingly worried about the inability of the government to follow up on its commitments in that accord or to meet any of the timelines.
On the education front, the budget promises to expand the student loan program. It also promises to remove barriers to low income Canadians seeking to further their and their children's higher education. These are noble goals. I would point out, however, that this is not the first time that the government has promised to increase assistance to students, and its track record has been once again one of underachievement.
This is government has not met any of its education targets set out in the 1998 budget, the Prime Minister's so-called education budget. The millennium scholarship program has been a flop, according to the government's own review of the program. Most of the other programs announced in 1998 have failed to deliver half of the money promised.
On agriculture, the budget promises an aid package for farmers hit by BSE. This aid is long overdue and much needed in this industry, but Canada's case of BSE was detected 10 months ago and our beef industry has been suffering since. Shamefully, the announcement of aid for farmers was a staged campaign announcement instead of a genuine act of support and compassion for our ranchers and their families.
In the past we have seen many programs which looked good when announced, but which do not translate into meaningful monetary help to those who need it. I call upon the government to ensure that the money actually makes it to our ranchers and producers immediately, without delays and without political interference.
On infrastructure, the Prime Minister has spent the better part of the last two years talking a new deal for cities. Yet to date, he has delivered precious little. He wants to keep in place boondoggle programs like the federal infrastructure program. He has already waffled on using gas tax revenues for infrastructure spending, and he has failed to talk about issues beyond Canada's big cities. His failure to deliver on these issues simply confirms that this Prime Minister cannot be trusted to keep his promises.
On the environment, this government is going down the path of making grand announcements without focusing on providing real solutions to real problems. The Liberals say they want to restore Canada to a place of pride in the world. Yet for 10 years, Canada has seen a dramatic drop in its standard of living relative to other countries and a widening productivity gap compared to the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands and many other countries.
The Prime Minister reserved his deepest cuts for the men and women who so proudly serve Canada in the military. This budget restores absolutely none of that spending. This is a strange way to improve our standing in the world.
Then there are the black holes in the budget. There are those programs that are just waiting to be the next sponsorship scandal, the next HRDC or the next gun registry. I refer to $250 million in new money for the Business Development Bank to dole out on corporate welfare. I refer to billions in politically directed infrastructure funds. I refer to $90 million in a so-called northern economic development strategy. I speak of $605 million in undetermined spending in the security contingency reserve.
This is but a partial list of budget items which the tired, old and corrupt Liberal Party put forward to demonstrate change. Only the new Conservative Party is going to represent change in this country.
If Canadians want things to change, and I believe they do, it will not be done through a bunch of recycled 10-year-old promises from the Prime Minister. Change will only come through a change in government.
Only a new Conservative government will change the way tax dollars are spent. Only a Conservative government will return integrity to the political process. Only a Conservative government will put money into the pockets of Canadians, rather than the pockets of ad agencies.
We will accomplish all this and more because we have not been compromised by scandals. We will accomplish all this and more because we were not involved in 10 years of mismanagement. We will accomplish all this and more because we do not have to prove to Canadians that we can manage their money. We will accomplish all this and more because we represent the hopes and wishes of the unheard majority of the citizens of this country.
If Canadians are looking for change, and I believe they are, they are not going to find it in a bunch of recycled 10 year old promises from this Liberal Prime Minister. They are only going to find it by changing the government.
Only a new Conservative government will change the way tax dollars are treated. Only a new Conservative government will return integrity to the political process. Only a new Conservative government will put dollars in the pockets of Canadians, rather than in the pockets of ad firms. Only a new Conservative government will transfer gas taxes to infrastructure projects in all corners of Canada. Only a new Conservative government will give rural communities and rural livelihoods the respect that they deserve. Only a new Conservative government will protect children and respect families. Only a new Conservative government will restore funding to our armed forces. Only a new Conservative government will eliminate, not just cut, the air tax. Only a new Conservative government will stop the EI rip-off.
We will do all these things and more because we are not encumbered by this scandal. We will do these things and more because we are not weighed down by 10 years of mismanagement. We can do these things and more because we do not have to prove to Canadians that we can finally manage their money. We will do all these things and more because we represent the hopes and desires of the unheard majority of the citizens of this country.
We will also do these things and more because for the first time in a decade we can present a united Conservative choice to all Canadians. We will listen to those in Atlantic Canada who desire greater control over their own resources and their own destiny. We will respect those in Quebec and their own unique language and culture. We will hear the unheard majority of Ontarians who are demanding accountability and sound fiscal management of their tax dollars. We will welcome the west into the corridors of power.
New Conservatives represent real change for a better government for all Canadians.
This budget truly demonstrates the difference between the tired old Liberals and our new Conservative Party. The old Liberal Party is so focused on trying to restore its image as financial managers that it has absolutely nothing else to propose.
Our new Conservative Party is not encumbered by scandal. Our new Conservative Party has no obstacle to interfere with the vision of providing good, clean government for the benefit of all Canadians. It is a vision of cleaning up waste. It is a vision of reducing taxes for Canadians and their families. It is a vision of providing sustainable public services. It is a vision of continuing to clean up our water, clean up our air and clean up our land and to do so with a clean government. It is a vision that Canadians will be hearing much more about in the weeks and months to come.
I move:
That the motion be amended by substituting all the words after the word “that” with the following:
This House rejects the government's budget because it is an agenda for underachievement that fails to eliminate wasteful spending like the gun registry, corporate welfare and the $160 million misappropriated at DND; and because, by perpetuating Liberal government favouritism through corrupt programs like ad scam, it is an affront to Canadians funding priorities that would address ever increasing hospital waiting lines, student debt, over burdened and under equipped soldiers, tax relief, and debt retirement.