Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in the debate on the budget implementation act and to follow the very wise comments of my colleague, the member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore.
New Democrats in the House are taking the matter very seriously. We will give the bill very serious scrutiny and consideration, as we have done throughout the whole budget process, despite the fact that the government is already out across the country attempting to trivialize its importance in the eyes of Canadians.
I guess we had all thought that this might have been an election budget filled with goodies, which has been the tradition of the Liberals. They bring in a budget just before an election filled with all kinds of surprises and goodies for Canadians, only then to see those promises broken after the election and the spending on those goodies cut back drastically.
It is interesting, the Liberals did not try it this time. The tight-fistedness of this government certainly has continued through the budget, but this time around the strategy is certainly different. I suppose it pretty well had to be, given the $100 million sponsorship scandal and the multitude of other Liberal disasters now surfacing almost daily.
While the Liberals have openly admitted that this budget is about demonstrating their credibility, the reality is this budget is about saving face for the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party. Canadians are being told to put their budget priorities on hold so the Prime Minister can repair his scandal tarnished image.
What do Canadians really need right now? They need Romanow and they need Kyoto. They also need roads, affordable housing, lower student tuition, pay equity and safe water. They need all that, whether the Liberals are re-elected or not.
What are we offered instead? What is the great vision in the budget? What is the road map? We are offered accelerated debt reduction. Accelerated is what we are talking about, not whether we should not continue paying down the debt. Of course we should, and the members opposite are absolutely silly to suggest that the NDP is saying something otherwise. We are talking about the ludicrousness of the government coming forward with one national project. It is not like the old days with the national railway, or old age security or medicare. What do we get from this government? What is the legacy the new Prime Minister wants to leave this country? It is accelerated debt reduction.
We are going into the golden age of accounting. As I said in previous debates, that is good for the bankers, but it sure is not good for Canadians. We have children living in poverty, students in debt, families without affordable homes, all suffering budget whiplash as the Liberals put the accelerator to the floor on debt reduction. Urgent needs are being needlessly neglected today that will bear heavy costs in future years, both in dollar terms and in human terms.
Economists drafted another approach: the balanced people-centred alternative federal budget. Those economists point out that a better way of reducing the debt to GDP ratio is to strengthen the economy with targeted spending in the public interest by investing in infrastructure projects, health renewal, green energy production thereby generating jobs and other economic pluses.
I am glad the Liberals across the way think they are excellent ideas, but they have to make better choices. They cannot take all the surplus money and put it into a contingency fund or a prudence fund and then let it slip into paying off the debt on an accelerated basis. They cannot have it both ways. They have to have a balanced approach and that is what we do not have from the government.
As my colleague from Nova Scotia just said, New Democrats absolutely support responsible debt reduction, but we do not support ideological debt reduction. We do not support the fetish that the Prime Minister and his colleagues have with this accelerated debt reduction plan because it means sacrificing the needs of Canadians who are crying out today for the government's support and assistance.
This is the perfect budget for the conservative Prime Minister. Is it an ambitious budget to support the ambitious agenda the Prime Minister keeps talking about? Of course not, not by any stretch of the imagination.
It calls for another year on previous tax cuts with the only concrete new commitments made to setting up future privatization partnerships with Liberal corporate cronies. Program spending for the rest of us remains at 1950 levels, around 11% of GDP. The cynicism of the government does not just end there. It is true there is no imagination in a budget whose vision is limited to debt reduction. The imagination comes afterward as the Liberals try to sell Canadians on the fantasy of their election promises.
Three days after the budget was delivered, before the ink was even dry on the government's economic blueprint for the coming year, the Prime Minister was out giving speeches offering up a very different picture. He told an audience in Winnipeg “There will be more money for health care. The federal government will increase its share of funding. Roy Romanow was right”. Then why did he not deliver in the budget?
There was not a single mention of Romanow in the budget, just like the throne speech before it. There is no new money to bring the federal share of health funding up to 25% from its current level of below 17%. The Canadian Medical Association, the health care association and other health care advocates pointed with disappointment and despair to the budget's failure to dramatically improve medicare's sustainability.
The Prime Minister went on to talk about a new relationship with the provinces and territories, yet the government had met with the premiers and knew very well what they wanted to see in the budget. What has the government done to further health funding stability since December? It has played a cat and mouse guessing game about whether it would even deliver on its promised one time $2 billion from the surplus.
The same pre-election sleight of hand is going on in other areas where there was no concrete budget commitment. There are areas like employment insurance where the Liberals are announcing study groups, promising changes that were not seen in the budget or any other Liberal budget in the past 10 years. Here we are, only one week after the budget, another the Liberals will get to it later budget, waiting for an election call and this year's version of the Liberal red book with a new batch of promises.
The national child care program still has not been delivered after being promised in 1993. It is just like sustainable health care funding; like clean air and accessible education; like surplus spending equality between tax cuts and debt reductions on the one hand and program spending on the other. Unlike the Liberals' election promises, the budget tells a different story. It tells a story of 10 years of Liberal government, 10 years of Liberal neglect, largely under the financial guidance of the Prime Minister.
The lower 40% of Canadian families have less after tax income while the top 20% have seen their income rise by 16%. Unemployment consistently has been above 6% the whole time. Some 38% of the unemployed have been unable to collect benefits. There is a wider gender gap for full time, full year work and women's earnings are only 72% of men's. There are skyrocketing tuition fees. Child poverty levels are virtually unchanged. Single mothers and elderly women are more likely to be trapped below poverty. Canada's aboriginal people are still living in third world conditions.
Yes, it is no wonder that the Liberal government wants to move quickly past its conservative budget. It wants desperately to move on out of the reality of its budget failure to the glowing promises to be realized by taking a bite of the Liberal election apple. The Liberals are already well on their way trying to ride Canadians' unfulfilled hopes and dreams to another Liberal election victory.