Madam Speaker, I realize that people are anxious to get on with the passage of the budget measures, which we hope will actually result in many of the important programs and services on which Canadians depend, to be fully implemented. This, of course, is the budget implementation legislation that will enable us to do this.
On behalf of my constituents in Halifax, who I am privileged and proud to represent, I want to speak briefly about some elements of the budget that are under consideration. Let me say that as we do so it is important that we take account of the context in which this budget implementation debate is taking place.
First, we know that the Liberals wrestled the deficit to the ground, as they like to say, but it was only after it had heaped the real burden of that deficit reduction program upon the provinces and municipalities, in many cases the most vulnerable of our citizens. The program really became a deficit downloading or a shifting of deficit rather than any meaningful and fair-minded budget deficit solution.
However, having done so, we then witnessed seven successive years in which there has been a very significant and growing surplus under the current government. Canadians were hopeful that what this meant was that the many years of tearing down many of our public services, failing to address the growing problems with respect to our public infrastructure and rebuilding many of our public institutions that had been severely eroded would actually get underway in earnest.
Therefore it was with some considerable alarm, even before the introduction of the first federal budget under the new Prime Minister, the former finance minister in the government, that his very first act upon taking the reins of power as Prime Minister was actually to proceed with a $4.4 billion tax cut, primarily benefiting large corporations that had no claim as first priority to such tax dollars.
That is the context in which we are now debating the budget priorities, the budget allocation that is before us in this implementation bill. Although one is hard-pressed to find actual dollars and cents on which Canada I think, predictably, will be on the hook in the future if the government does not reverse its current course, I think it is also part of the context in which we debate this budget that Canada, again without consultation with Canadians, to the considerable alarm I think of Canadians who have been following this issue, has now signed on for Canada to participate in the missile defence madness of the Bush administration, with the details of Canada's participation to be worked out.
However it has been made clear to Canadians, and we should make no mistake about it, that the government is quite uncritical about that missile defence program, engaging in the fiction that it is not about the weaponization of space and the further fiction, actually a very dangerous one, that somehow it will not cost Canada anything anyway, which of course is ridiculous.
With that context in mind, I want to talk a bit about the prebudget consultations that were held across the country with our federal leader, Jack Layton, meeting together with constituents in many parts of the country. In particular, I want to talk a bit about that prebudget consultation in my own riding of Halifax that was held in the run up to the budget that has since been introduced and is now before us for implementation.
I am sure it will not surprise anyone to know that there was a great deal of concern about the plight of post-secondary education.
I am proud that my riding of Halifax has no less than seven post-secondary education institutions. However many students, faculty members and staff members of those post-secondary education institutions were very concerned about the steady erosion of funding to post-secondary education. The effect has been enormous. Not only has there been some erosion in the quality of educational experience for students and a tremendous loss and outflow of some of our very best faculty members to other parts of Canada where provinces have a bigger tax base and deeper pockets, but also an outflow from the country to the U.S. and other places.
I want to say that what we saw in the budget was woefully inadequate in its response to this growing problem. The most serious aspect of it is the massive student debt that has been heaped upon the shoulders of our students who are always being reminded of how critically important it is for them to have post-secondary education in today's knowledge based economy.
What we have in the budget primarily that purports to address the problem of student debt and rising tuition costs is the privilege for families of limited income--and even that is a ridiculous notion for many because of how untenable it is to set aside many dollars for the future--of sheltering $500 a year toward a learning fund, not to even take effect for 18 years. It is truly amazing that the government would think this would be the response to the crisis that is already being borne by many students and, of course, the privilege of accumulating another $3,000 debt. It is a very inadequate response.
Health concerns are enormous all over the country but in Halifax, where we have a number of primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities, both a provincial and regional centre, there is little in the budget to address what are growing waiting lists for surgery, for diagnostic testing, for specialist services and the longer waiting times in our hospital emergency rooms. There is absolutely no serious commitment to deal with the crisis.
I had the opportunity to meet with political action representatives of the Canadian Medical Association a couple of weeks ago who were extremely alarmed that the government has yet to take seriously implementing the recommendations of the Romanow commission. Many of those recommendations have been ignored but the most serious one, for the continuing erosion of our not for profit public health care system, is the failure to recommit the funds year over year to the financial base, having taken $17 billion out of our public health care system.
There are many other areas of priority concern, such as child care and social housing, that have been virtually ignored by the budget. It will not surprise anybody when I say that I join those colleagues in the NDP caucus who have already spoken to express alarm about the misplaced priorities, the inadequacy of addressing many of these concerns, and of course the environment and the rebuilding of our municipal infrastructure across this country, which again the government has engaged in a great deal of fanfare about, but substantively, when we come down to the actual dollars and cents of the priorities of this budget, are virtually absent or very timid indeed.
It is with heavy heart that I say that the budget surplus that has been accumulated at the expense of many of our most vulnerable citizens and our most vital public services, in this budget that sacrifice has not been recognized and the reparation and repair to the damage done remains unattended to.