Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and represent the constituents of Saanich--Gulf Islands in the budget debate. I will be splitting my time with the member for St. John's West.
When we listened to the budget speech, there were such expectations. The Prime Minister, when he was minister of finance, had been plotting for some 10 to 13 years to overthrow the previous prime minister, Jean Chrétien. He was successful last November. That was his dream. We expected to see some type of vision, his plans on where he wanted to take the country.
We were absolutely surprised by the budget. It was so hollow. There was very little in it.
The Prime Minister has been completely derailed by the sponsorship program, by the wasteful and abusive government spending. I call it the theft program, not the sponsorship program.
This matter was created by the Liberal Party. I want to touch on this because this is one of the major points in the budget. It is ironic. The theft program, otherwise known as the sponsorship program, was created to promote unity across Canada. When we talk to people outside Quebec, they say, “Quebec gets all this money. What a crazy program. The $250 million that the Liberals funnelled in there has gone to Liberal friendly firms”. For anyone who is associated with the party it is really a corrupt program. There is no question about it. When we talk to people inside Quebec, they say, “There is nothing but a bunch of crooks in Ottawa. Look at this $250 million. Look at the unity program”. Whether people are inside Quebec or outside Quebec what they are seeing in the program is corruption in the highest order.
I have said that this is one of the darkest days in Canadian political history, but let us get into the specifics. The government has been preoccupied with this for two or three months. Its response has been to bring back the comptroller general of Canada. This was something that was eliminated in 1994 by the Liberals. It was a process that had been started before they took office. The Liberal government weakened that position and eventually got rid of it entirely in 1994.
Ironically in 1995 it was the current Prime Minister when he was minister of finance who promised to bring in program review to ensure that we did not get wasteful spending, to ensure that there was value for money. That year, 1995, was the very same year that the minister of finance, who is now the Prime Minister, approved the sponsorship program where we have seen hundreds of millions of dollars go down a big black sink hole never to return.
It is the talk on the streets in British Columbia everywhere we go. When we go into the restaurants, the coffee shops or wherever we end up people are genuinely upset. Members from all parties, including the Liberals, have told me that people are angry about this, and rightfully so. They should be angry. They have a right to be angry.
In British Columbia people have said to me, “When Glen Clark spent $450 million on the fast ferries, the people of British Columbia were so outraged that they reduced the government majority down to two seats. But at least the government spent the money on ferries. It did not work, but they spent the money on ferries”.
In the sponsorship scandal, the theft program, the money was literally stolen. It is corruption of the highest order. Sadly, money went to Liberal friendly ad agencies, the ones that have been doing all the contracting. All the stories have been out there. It is a slap in the face to the Canadian taxpayer. This is the time of year when Canadians are filling out their income tax and writing cheques to send to Ottawa and these are the stories they are reading on how money is spent.
I will bring this a bit closer to home. How has this impacted the people of Saanich—Gulf Islands? A number of employees who worked for JDS Uniphase were innocently caught up in an employee stock purchase plan. It was an absolute tax nightmare. I cannot go into all the details but, in short, people received salaries for one year in the amount of $100,000 and their T4s showed $1.4 million in earnings and $700,000 in tax owing.
I met with the then minister of finance who is now the Prime Minister. He looked at that and acknowledged that it was a serious problem and that something had to be done. He acknowledged that these people were caught up in a tangled web through no fault of their own and he promised to do something. I met with his officials and had e-mails from them saying that they would “cut the motor” on Revenue Canada from pursuing these people.
It has now been three years and absolutely nothing has been done. I wrote the Prime Minister in his capacity as minister of finance and I have written the current finance minister. I have written three finance ministers and it has fallen on deaf ears. Do they care about these people? No.
Who do the Liberals care about? What have they done? How about George Radwanski, the former privacy commissioner who owed the federal government over $600,000 in taxes? What did the current Prime Minister, the former minister of finance, do in that situation? He wrote off over $600,000. Why would he write off the privacy commissioner's tax debt? He was a well connected Liberal.
I am sure members can see where this is going. If one is a well connected Liberal, one gets special perks, special favours and hundreds of millions of dollars.
This has brought Parliament into the darkest days of political history. A black cloud is hanging over all parliamentarians because of what the present Liberal government has done. It has of course tried to portray itself as a new government but half of the cabinet are the same Liberal people. We are not seeing anything different.
I want to comment on a few of the specifics in the budget, the first one being health care. I have always said that health care is one of the most important issues for my constituents. We have serious problems in health care: waiting lists are getting longer and access to health care and finding a family doctor are becoming more difficult.
After the government's claim that it put all this money back into health care, let us look at the facts. The lineups are significantly longer today than they were when the Liberal government took power in 1993. It takes longer and longer to get services. No new money went into health care. The Liberals announced some old money that they had already put in, but they have not addressed these problems. They do not look at the systemic problems of the health care system. They do not bring in energy and new ideas. It is a huge problem.
I want to quickly talk about education. If a baby was born after 2003 and his or her parents make less than $35,000 a year, the child will receive a grant in 18 years. What is being done for the students of today with all this talk about education? The government is telling students to borrow more, to go deeper into debt and to crawl into that big black hole.
There is nothing in this budget that is helping Canadians. The government has done nothing to address the sponsorship program. It is all smoke and mirrors. There will be nothing there to bring accountability back to the government and it wants us to trust it.
Over the next two months, on his campaign trail, we will hear the Prime Minister talk about his new Liberal government but it is nothing but a facade. It is the same old, tired government that has brought the darkest black cloud over this Parliament in Canadian political history. The Liberals need to be sent a clear message that they need to go. It is time for a new government in this country.