Debates of Feb. 4th, 2005

Question No. 27

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 23, 2004, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2

[Guy Côté, Bloc, Portneuf, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight the very accurate observation the hon. Speaker made earlier this morning—following the presentation by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, if memory serves—about past, present and future budgets actually all having things in common.

Where this government is concerned, these are: interference in the jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec; poor budget forecasting; transfer of this Parliament's money into foundations to shield it from scrutiny by parliamentarians; mismanagement of the employment insurance fund and robbery of $46 billion; underfunding of equalization transfers; forecasts for the next five years which include reserves for contingencies and economic prudence larger than the estimated real surplus.

In his presentation, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness indicated that resolving the health management issues in Quebec and the provinces will take more than just money. The Liberal government claims to be a great health care manager prepared to take its place in this area, which is clearly Quebec's jurisdiction.

What kind of expertise does this government have in health care management? How many hospitals is it managing and how many employees work for the health department?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I will respond to the questions and comments from the Bloc Québécois member. If the government runs a surplus, that is good news, in my opinion, not bad news. We can pay down the debt with each surplus.

I said that we must invest in Canada's health care system. At the same time, we have to take a closer look at how that system works.

We do not have the expertise at the federal level, unlike what the member was implying. We have the responsibility to provide national standards and funding, and it is up to the provinces to deliver health care.

What we have said and the commitment we have from the provinces and territories is to have greater accountability and transparency, more public disclosure of what results are being accomplished. This is not intruding into the jurisdiction of the provinces. In fact, the provinces have agreed.

With respect to the province of Quebec, there is a slightly different way of institutionalizing that, but the results are the same. Quebeckers and all Canadians deserve the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent and the kind of value for money they are getting for their tax dollars in the health care system compared to other provinces. That is a reasonable expectation of Canadians and Quebeckers, and that is what we are all committed to.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, here we are at second reading stage of the budget implementation act. Citizens will ask if this is the budget already. No, they should not be fooled; this is about the 2004 budget. The government was so concerned about these changes to Canadians' lives and here we are still speaking about them on the eve of the finance minister's next budget. It is important before we get to a new budget that we look back on the old budget and what was not in it.

We Conservatives have asked the government for tax relief for low and middle income Canadians. It has become more evident of late that despite bragging about great reductions in taxation, Canadians continue to say, “Show me the money”. Despite stated reductions in taxation, the hardworking people of Elgin—Middlesex—London and the rest of Canada have less money in their pockets.

We must find a way to offer needed services to the citizens of this great country and to stimulate the growth of our economy. We must also ensure that any and all money taken from Canadians in the form of taxes, in payroll deductions, or in fees by the government is treated with the respect it deserves. We must remember the source of these funds. The money comes out of the pockets, the wallets, the bank accounts and the piggy banks of Canadians. These funds belong to the people, not the finance minister.

It is the job of the government to wisely collect, account for, and prescribe spending that the country needs to support its people, remembering that the money belongs to the people. We must ensure that only the amount needed to accomplish this and the needs of Canada is taken away from Canada's citizens.

The habit of huge surplus budgets must end. We must, as suggested, implement a fully independent process for forecasting the government's financial situation. The government has proven either through deceit or ignorance that it cannot be trusted not to take billions and billions more from taxpayers than is needed to do the job. If we just left these funds with Canadians in the first place, we would save the cost of collection and influence the disposable incomes of all Canadians.

The government must also ensure that the tax dollars and other funds sent to the government are treated with the respect they deserve. We must erase the waste. The government has a legacy of waste and mismanagement.

One of the areas of waste in this implementation act is still the Air Travellers Security Charge Act, which should be renamed the “something really bad happened so we found a new way to take money from hardworking Canadians act”. This tax needs not to be reduced but eliminated. It is a drag on tourism. It is causing our airports to be expensive places to fly out of. We have continually asked for that tax to be eliminated, but we have not been listened to. We were correct that more money was being taken in than was needed for airport security. Thanks for listening and finally lowering the tax. The next step is complete elimination.

This is just another example of wasteful action on the part of the government. Canadians value their earnings, it seems, greater than the government does.

With the waste in the sponsorship debacle, the gun registry fiasco, and budget errors, the waste is permanently set into each Canadian's mind. Many Canadians cringe each time they send money or have it taken from them when they think of the wasteful areas in which the government has spent it.

Canadians are fully aware of the employment insurance fund hoax. Many young low income earners are stolen from on every paycheque with EI deductions for a program they cannot use. Employers are paying matching contributions into a fund that should be used as an emergency income support fund to assist workers who are out of work through no fault of their own. Instead it goes into a government slush fund. The use for which EI was designed is not being followed.

The bill makes some small attempts at small business tax relief, but in true dithering fashion it does not go far enough.

In the next budget we must see more tax relief. This brings me to the third and perhaps most important area of concern, taxes. Canadians are too heavily taxed. This kills jobs and causes our economy to grow at less than potential. Lower taxes must be a priority and the pace of implementation must be increased.

We continue to hear about the largest tax decrease ever given. The problem is that it is in the future. It is similar to having a sale at the store for washers and dryers 10 years from now. It sounds great if we are there to take advantage of the world's greatest tax decrease.

Starting with low and middle income wage earners, we can improve the quality of life and stimulate spending. That is where it can help the most.

We must see bold attempts at substantial tax relief in the small business sector. The government must stop its practice of half-measures and inadequate solutions and go the whole distance to help the economic engine that drives Canada, the small businesses of this country.

Through tax reduction in this sector we can assist in dealing with the rising dollar and the ever-rising costs. Small business has been crying out for tax reduction and all it has received is a substantial reduction in the income of small business owners.

In conclusion, Bill C-33 has arrived too late. It accomplishes too little and sets expectations for the next budget too low. Let us hope the finance minister is listening to us this time.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part once again today in the debate on the budget implementation bill.

I had the opportunity to give a brief speech in the House a few days ago in anticipation of the coming budget. I am taking this opportunity to remind the House again of the importance of various initiatives in the previous budget and also, of course, of what needs to be done to ensure the prosperity of Canadians.

I neglected to mention when I started that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Davenport.

The last budget included a number of extremely important programs, which deserve mentioning. For example, the New Horizons program was reinvented, if that is the right word. I invite all members, especially those few—I know there are not many—who might be inclined to vote against this budget implementation bill, to remember that the new New Horizons program is in this bill.

So we should be proud of this but also support it so that these programs are implemented. This is an excellent initiative. I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister of Finance, in the coming budget, to increase the funding allocated for the renewal or reinvention of the New Horizons program, which we are familiar with from a number of years ago.

I was surprised, even astonished, earlier today when I listened to the hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. He and some of his colleagues, the extreme right of the members opposite, claiming that the Government of Canada has not done enough for rural Canada. A little later, another Conservative member, the one who has just finished speaking, told the House that we should simply stop collecting tax money and redistributing it. That would certainly further worsen the situation in rural areas.

That is the Conservative position. Here is why I say that: in eastern Ontario, thanks to the last budget—that is, the one before us today in this budget implementation bill—we have a program to help rural communities in eastern Ontario. In other words, all of eastern Ontario except Ottawa and Kingston.

This program—it is only a one-year pilot program and I will come back to that later—is intended to help rural communities. Its aim is to give them a chance to get ahead. Thanks to the intervention of the eastern Ontario caucus which is so ably chaired by the hon. member for Northumberland—Quinte West, thanks to the actions of the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, thanks to the association of mayors and reeves of eastern Ontario, who also favoured this program, we have obtained it. Unfortunately, it will only last one year. Therefore, the first thing we want is to have this program confirmed in this bill. The other thing we want is to make it permanent so that in the future, eastern Ontario's rural communities will be able to move forward.

It is important to say this for the benefit of the people in the riding of the hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, who has made negative comments about this program all over eastern Ontario. If he votes against it, his voters will call him to order, as they should. The same may be said of the other Conservative members who might be tempted, in their usual bumbling manner, to vote against the Minister of Finance's excellent bill.

Returning to the upcoming budget, this morning I spoke with some farmers from my riding who telephoned me because of yesterday's debate on agriculture. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives wanted to see the government take a unilateral step concerning one of its programs, which would have eliminated the provincial component. As a result, farmers would have ended up with 60% of their benefits, rather than the 100% they have today.

Needless to say, we on this side of the House are not in favour of that approach. Farmers are suffering enough already without losing 40% of their benefits.

However, we do have the package for the mad cow crisis already mentioned. We need to step up our assistance to farmers, but we must not neglect the needs of other agricultural sectors. For instance, it will soon be spring planting time, and unfortunately a number of farmers in my region have not been able to make early seed purchases. The earlier you buy, the better the price. But they have had to wait because they are short of money.

They are having serious problems. Last year's crops did not bring the prices they ought to have on the North American market. So incomes are down and farmers are increasingly in need of advances for purchasing their seed.

I hope that the hon. Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food will be able to enhance this program in his budget and thus increase the amounts allocated to the advance payments program I have just described.

That is what I wanted to touch on briefly today in this connection. It is to be hoped that the Minister of Finance will come up with a good budget and that we will all acknowledge what he and his predecessors have accomplished since we became the government in 1993.

I would like to close with the new unemployment statistics released today. Once again, the news is excellent. The government and the Minister of Finance deserve our congratulations. In the past years, we were one of the few G-8 economies to have created employment. We are also the only one among that illustrious groups of nations to have managed to achieve a balanced budget, and better yet to have paid off the debt accumulated by previous governments.

Do we need to remind hon. members of the last Conservative government, the Mulroney government, one of whose members I see across from me as I give this speech I spent a long time preparing earlier today? That hon. member must be aware that close to one-half of the debt accumulated during the entire history of Canada was accumulated by a single prime minister. That person, we must admit, was a Conservative Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney to be precise, he of the same political stripe as the chief whip of the official opposition sitting across from me, much as it may pain him to accept that. It is, however, reality.

Over those 10 years, our Liberal government has not only presented balanced budgets—I think we are up to seven in a row—but it has also paid down the accumulated debt, created employment and achieved a rate of unemployment that is far lower than ever before. I congratulate the Minister of Finance and all his team on these achievements.

I am therefore calling upon hon. members to support his bill and, of course, to support the excellent budget we will no doubt be seeing in the next few weeks, hopefully including extra assistance for our farmers.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to listen to the member. In previous times he was probably the best House leader that the Liberal Party has ever had. I would like to congratulate him for some very good work in this Parliament.

I have a couple of comments that I would like to make about his speech, one which I really want to emphasize.

The Liberals love to say, as he did again, that it was during the time of a Conservative government that the national debt rose at unprecedented levels. The mathematics of that is true, but all one has to do is look at the exponential curve on the growth of the debt if no payments are made toward it. I have taught mathematics, and I did the mathematics on this.

In 1993 I ran against a Conservative candidate and a Liberal candidate. The Liberal was way back when the polling was finally done. It was during that time when I did this math. The Conservative candidate said that the Conservatives had not added, through any program borrowing, any money to the debt. Over the nine years of their mandate, they had a balanced budget on program expenditures.

I checked this because I argued with this guy on the hustings. Having a little knowledge of math and finance, I checked it out and he was right spot on.

If we look at the debt the Conservatives inherited from the Liberals in 1984 and look at the debt in 1993, it is almost exactly equal to the amount of debt that the Liberals left them with accumulated interest. One could say that the Conservatives were in error in not addressing that debt more quickly. However, that is like saying an archer has shot an arrow and it is somebody else's fault it met its mark because somebody else should have caught that arrow in the air. It was a difficult time.

I would like to correct the member on that. It was not the Conservative's fault. It was a Liberal inherited debt from years past that caused this, and we are still burdened under it.

I would like the member's response, if he has one.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his kind words. He was a House officer for his party for some time and we had the pleasure of working together.

The hon. member confessed that it was the Conservatives who were responsible for what I thought was half or so of the accumulated debt in the history of Canada, all of it under one prime minister, Brian Mulroney. His successor only had a summer job, and she was kicked out right away.

If I understood the hon. member correctly, he was apologizing for Brian Mulroney for having brought us one-half of the accumulated debt in the history of Canada based on the fact that it was not a particular kind of deficit, but another kind of deficit. I have never heard of Canadians being more satisfied because program money was mismanaged as opposed to some other kind of money. I do not think that would wash with Canadian taxpayers.

Half of that debt was so created. No new debt has been created in the country for seven or better of the last 10 years. We have repaid accumulated debt. Almost two million more Canadians are working today than were working when we came to power in 1993. Those are the facts. New numbers have come out today. There has not been an increase in unemployment in the middle of winter, and that is almost unprecedented. That is the kind of good management we have had under this government. I am proud to be a member of this team.

I ask people to vote for the bill because it has excellent things in it. I am anxiously awaiting an even better budget, if that is possible, on February 23.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure to listen to members from both sides of the House speak on the issue of the budget. We have to keep in mind that Canada is the envy of the world in many respects, particularly in our financial situation. We have had seven consecutive budgets. We have had unprecedented surpluses in our budget as well, which makes us the envy of many places around the world.

At times, when listening to the debate, we forget to praise and recognize that Canada has put itself in the world stage, which is a remarkable feat. Because of these unprecedented balanced budgets and the measures taken by previous finance minister, now the Prime Minister, to put us in this great economic situation, we can look at investing in some of our key priorities that will put forward the social agenda for the country for the years to come.

In particular, an area I am most interested in is the cities. It is something for which I have a great passion, having been a municipal councillor for almost 10 years in the city of Toronto. The cities were not just crying out for money, although money is extremely important. They were crying out for recognition by the federal government that cities would play a big role in the decision making and for respect. I believe we have managed to do that.

The Prime Minister has spoken with many of the leaders of municipalities across the country. He has demonstrated time and time again that he wants to listen to their concerns and act on their suggestions. They greatly appreciate the Prime Minister giving a hand to help them.

In particular, the GST has saved municipalities like the city of Toronto some $50 million annually. That is a tremendous saving. The budget of Toronto is an extremely large budget of about $7 billion, but $50 million goes a long way to help the city deal with many of the financial burdens that it faces, specifically in delivery of direct services.

Another core issue that we are moving forward with is the gas tax. The announcement by the minister has been extremely well received by municipalities. It is another sign that our government and the Prime Minister want to work with the municipalities. The Prime Minister does care about their concerns and is doing everything he can within his power to ensure that cities get what they deserve. They very much appreciate the incredible amount of cooperation and goodwill that has been exhibited by our government and our Prime Minister.

Another area that is very important is public transportation. I particularly admire the fact that both the Prime Minister and the minister have stated over and over again that they want to move forward, not just with the GST rebate and the gas tax, but also with the issue of Kyoto and linking its obligations to meet the protocol. The moneys to be given to the municipalities is a very strong move forward in support of the importance of meeting the Kyoto protocol and our concerns about the environment.

There is a link when we talk about helping our cities. Cities are in many ways at the forefront of dealing of issues of the environment and issues around climate control. What better way in Toronto than to deal with the whole issue of public transportation? The Toronto transit system carries about two million passengers daily. In many ways that takes away the reliance on cars which in turn reduces smog.

Time and time again Toronto has faced many problems with smog in the summer. It is quite critical. Strengthening public transportation is essential in order to deal with the issue of smog and climate change.

This is a very important move at a very critical time. The government has pushed forward the Kyoto protocol agreement. Cities are moving forward on issues like public transportation. A link is being made between the gas tax rebate and Kyoto. This is fundamental. I am very proud to see that the government is moving forward very strongly in this area.

As a government and as a party, we have committed to health care, a fundamental issue to Canadians. Certainly the signing of the health accord with the premiers is fundamental in ensuring that we are on solid footing for years to come in Canada. I am very pleased to support the government. All of us should take great pride because it was not just an agreement reached with the Prime Minister. It was reached by the Prime Minister in conjunction with all the provincial premiers, many of them from different political parties. They came together, understood the importance of health care to the citizens of this country and were very proud signatories to this historical agreement.

We are moving forward on the issue of child care. The minister is meeting with his provincial counterparts. We hope to have an agreement signed soon. The government is quite committed to moving forward on child care. I had the privilege of sitting on the human resources committee. This issue has been dealt with and discussions are ongoing. We have heard from agencies and community groups who very much want the government to move forward on this proposal. We are encouraged by the goodwill of people in the communities and agencies. The minister's discussions with his counterparts have been extremely successful.

We are very happy to be moving forward on these very important issues. I want to state once again my profound thanks to the former finance minister, the Prime Minister, for the incredible direction in which he has taken the country. We thought years ago Canada was headed toward economic oblivion and that we would not have solid foundations on the issues of employment insurance and pension plans. On many other fronts we thought we would not have the money but it is now a decade later and we have the money and Canada is on a very good, solid footing.

It is a balanced approach. There are those in the House who would like to put all the money into one specific area. The government always looks to balance the budget in a way that provides the social service programs Canadians need and deserve, and at the same time makes sure that we are on solid footing. We do not want to forget our obligations to maintain a competitive economy. We must also look at the tax cut measures that were taken by the government. It is a balanced approach. I think Canadians appreciate that the government has put the economy on a good solid footing for many years to come.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the speeches of the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell and the hon. member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park. They cited many figures and talked a lot about Canada's debt. I am no expert on the matter, but I have some figures that might give an indication of the extent of the debt at certain times in the recent history of our country.

In 1983-84, when the government changed, the debt was—if I recall correctly—roughly $198 billion. In 1993, when there was another change in government, the accumulated debt had reached $498 billion.

Mon colleague from Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, who said that the Mulroney government had almost doubled the debt, is mistaken. In fact, the Mulroney government more than doubled it. The debt went from some $200 billion to nearly $500 billion. Naturally, in 1993, during the first year the newly formed Liberal government was in power, a $42 billion deficit was added to the debt for the 1993-94 fiscal year.

For two or three years more, we continued to run deficits. Fortunately, they decreased year by year, and we finally managed to balance the books. For the past seven years, we have been generating budgetary surpluses. With these surpluses, we have been able to reduce the debt by $60 billion to, I believe, $501 billion now.

There is another important factor in all this. Hon. members should know that the debt to GDP ratio has decreased even more significantly. When the Liberal government was formed in 1993, the ratio was somewhere around 75%, while today it is less than 50%, which is why it is important to pass this bill.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker was absolutely correct in that we have reduced the deficit by $61 billion and there is an incredible savings to the taxpayers of over $3 billion annually. This is a remarkable feat for the government. Today we can look at investing in child care, health care and our cities because we have done such a tremendous job over the years of balancing the books and creating a surplus for this country. This is a very historical moment which we have arrived at because of the good management and good stewardship of the government.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question as a former municipal councillor. I know he is very proud of the Prime Minister's moving money from the GST file and the cities do not have to pay it any more, which is really what it is. First of all, why were they paying it in the first place? Why does the government not refund the money it stole from them over the years to begin with? What about school boards and other public institutions that currently have to pay GST? Why are they not worthy of having that burden removed?

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for many years, actually for most of the history of this country, the cities had very few dealings with the federal government. The attitude of most federal governments was that cities were a provincial jurisdiction and according to the Constitution they dealt with the provinces, and the federal government dealt with the provincial governments.

It was this government that realized that the cities and the communities across this country needed assistance and it needed to ensure that the federal government had a presence. I would like to congratulate the government for dealing with issues like the GST and the gas tax. It is one way in which we are showing good faith and good judgment in our relationship with the municipalities and cities throughout this country, something which is quite historical and unprecedented. I would like to use this opportunity to once again thank the government.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I had totally not intended to speak in this debate. I know that some people are eager to get out of here, but I could not let this debate stop where it is.

The parliamentary secretary made a statement and the Liberals are trying to pin our country's debt on Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives at that time. I tried to do that in 1993 when I was running for Parliament against the local Conservative candidate as well as the Liberal. The fact of the matter is that Brian O'Kurley, who was a member of Parliament during that time, got up during the all candidates debates and he kept on saying that in 1984 the Conservatives had inherited this debt from the Liberals. He said that the Conservatives had a balanced budget on program spending and that they did not spend more on programs than the money they took in.

I believe in dealing honestly with people. As I said before, being a mathematician I checked the figures out. Since this issue has come up this afternoon, I got out my little scientific calculator which I never leave home without, and I calculated the numbers.

I do not know whether the numbers given from the other side are accurate. Unfortunately, I do not remember the exact debt way back in those years, but I am going to use the numbers that the member used. I will accept that in 1984 the debt was $198 billion on the premise that he is correct and that it grew to $498 billion. Those are the numbers that he used. We will use those for this illustration.

The ratio of that debt is about two and a half times. In other words it grew in nine years to two and a half times its original size. All we have to do is take the ninth root of two to find out the interest rate. That is exactly what I did in just a few seconds. It comes to 10.7916749 to be precise, but it is basically 10.8%. That was the going interest rate during those years.

We could say that the Liberals over a number of years spent way more money on programs and waste than they took in. They borrowed money year after year. The debt grew to $198 billion by 1984 when the Liberals were properly turfed out.

Then the Conservatives had a short time of nine years during which they balanced the budget. They did not spend more on programs. As I said before, they could be held accountable for not attacking the debt and the deficit sooner. We could say that, but the amount of the deficit every year was equal to the interest payable on that debt that they had inherited. That is the fact.

The sum of $198 billion compounded annually at 10.8% over nine years is worth $498 billion. It is a shameful Liberal legacy that we have in our national debt.

The Liberals like to crow that they have brought this under control. I remind members that in 1993 when we first stood on this side and started hammering them on the deficit and the debt, we were called every unsavoury name in the English language, and probably the French language too. I guess that is one time I was glad I did not understand French, when they were calling us all sorts of names.

The Liberals were really ripping into us because we were so un-Canadian. We wanted to stop the spending and the borrowing which was putting our future generations into more debt. The Liberals finally came around.

Herb Grubel was our finance critic at that time. He wrote a very fascinating book when he retired from politics after one term. One of the things that he confessed in his book was that from time to time the finance minister, now the Prime Minister, would say to him privately, “Keep up the pressure. I have so much pressure from within my party to keep spending a bunch of money. I know that for the good of this country we need to bring down the debt”.

So the Prime Minister, then the finance minister, did bring down the debt, but it was at the pressure of the then Reform Party, and he was asking for that pressure because he needed the legitimization of his point of view.

I want to point out another thing. The Liberals keep crowing about how well they have done in managing the finances. When we look at the $1 billion or $2 billion they spend just at the flip of a finger on a gun registry or at the money wasted in an ad scam and all of the other mismanagement of the government, let us just think about how much we could have done if they had managed the money properly.

There is another point. In 1993 the Liberals were campaigning against free trade. The effect of free trade in this country right now is a huge financial gain. I think it is $1.5 billion every day. They spoke against it. If it were not for the implementation of free trade by the then Conservative government, would we be, even now, in the position that we are in? The Liberals themselves admit that our debt is down as a percentage of GDP. The debt has gone down by only a very small amount relative to its size when they took over, but they take the ratio of the GDP, and because the GDP has grown substantially, mostly due to free trade, obviously the debt is down as a percentage of the GDP.

I do not want to take a whole lot of time here, but I just could not allow these misconceptions to go unchallenged. I want to just simply say that in the end to the taxpayers I guess that looking backward is not going to help them a lot. We cannot drive a semi, as I did for many years, by looking in the rear-view mirror.

Let us stop trying to place the blame, maybe, but let us place it correctly if we are. Rather, let us rather look ahead. I am saying this simply. We need to implement in our policies plans that will reduce the debt and the deficit so that we have smaller interest payments and more money available--instead of less--to spend on the programs that Canadians value.

We need to make sure that we manage government properly and honestly and that there is not all of this waste, mismanagement and corruption. I hate to use that word, but it is very evident in the present milieu of the inquiry by Mr. Justice Gomery. There is so much evidence now that there is actual corruption in there. It has to stop. I call on Canadians very frankly to turf this government, because the Liberals will not wake up to the moral challenge before them until they have what we call for our grandchildren “a time out”. I think it is time that the Liberals got a time out.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Edmonton--Sherwood Park for his comments. He brings to the House considerable expertise, as was evident in his comments. I do not want to see that expertise wasted. I would like to take advantage of that expertise through my questions for him.

Notwithstanding the incredible waste of taxpayers' dollars that has occurred under this administration, I do not want to focus on that. I find it unfortunate and distasteful but it is not the focus of my question.

We know the government has claimed that its ability is very significant in terms of money management. It makes that claim repeatedly by saying that it has run surplus budgets for some time. We also know, in rough numbers, that the Liberal government inherited a debt created largely during the years of Pierre Trudeau and the previous prime minister, years of incredible overspending, which of course now the Liberals have has repeated in the last several years. The Liberals do not appear to have learned from the past. We know that.

We know the Liberals inherited a debt, we know that it continued to rise under their management, and we know that it has now dropped somewhat, to a level of approximately $60 billion less than what it was over a decade ago.

Where did the $60 billion come from? Notwithstanding the fact that much more money could have been applied to the debt if the Liberals had not wasted it on gun registries, foolishness, papering the bedroom walls of their friends and paying for lavish expenditures and trips such as those André Ouellet has enjoyed at the expense of the taxpayer, without receipts, notwithstanding any of that, they paid it down, they claim, by $60 billion. But what did they do with the EI surplus?

Forty-five billion dollars more was taken in by the government from working Canadians under employment insurance than was paid back in benefits to the workers of this country. There was $45 billion more taken out of the pockets of small business people, the major employers in this country, $45 billion more than was paid out in benefits. It was taken in by the government and it was not put in a reserve. The government did not set it aside. No. It is gone. It has vanished.

Where did the $45 billion go? Maybe it went against the debt. I am not sure. Maybe it went to André Ouellet. Maybe it went to worldwide travel. Maybe it went to the gun registry. We do not know. We are not sure. Maybe it went to jets for the Prime Minister. I do not know.

But I do know this. I do know that the government's claims of incredible money management are grossly overinflated. I would like the member to clarify for me if he feels that the employment insurance program could have been run more honestly and more transparently rather than used as a cash cow for the government.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what an excellent question and what a wonderful opportunity to lead up to another lesson for the Liberal government.

The hon. member asking the question made allusion to the fact that the Liberals got their $60 billion by which they have reduced the debt, perhaps a lot of it, from the EI surplus.

I want to emphasize this: the EI fund is to be an insurance program, as intended in the legislation. In fact, I think if we had an impartial court and were to plead the case, we could almost accuse the Liberals there, and probably win the case, of them having absconded with money to which they were not legally entitled. I do not like to use the other words that we sometimes use, but they took money to which they were not legally entitled.

It is interesting that the chief actuary has said over the years that when the surplus in the fund reaches $15 billion, that is sufficient. Yet these Liberals have kept accepting overpayments into it in huge amounts to the tune of $45 billion.

I have another number for members, though, and I do not know if many members here recall, but it is only about four or five years ago that we had a bill in the House in which the government took out of the civil service pension fund another $30 billion.

[An hon. member]

And the military guys.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

And the military.

They took this surplus out of the fund just because they said there was a surplus in it so then it was theirs. But that is not accurate. Those contributions come half from the employer, in other words the government or the taxpayers of the country, and half from the employees themselves, because they contribute to their pensions.

When the Liberals took that $30 billion unilaterally from the civil servants of our country, our wonderful civil servants and our military people, they actually took money to which they were not entitled. If we take half of that, half of the $30 billion is another $15 billion. So there we have the $45 billion from the EI fund and the $15 billion in excess taken back out of the surplus from the pension fund, and there is the $60 billion.

In other words, the Liberals have not done a thing in terms of making the actual operations of government more efficient. They have merely taken money that they were not entitled to and applied it to the debt. And there they are, standing up and crowing about how wonderful they are because they have made such fantastic achievements in the financial end.

I submit that this government cannot be found guilty of good fiscal management. If charged with being guilty of good fiscal management, they would win the case: they are not guilty.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I must comment. During the election campaign, I remember some of the Liberal advertising hammering away at certain individuals.

Then I read an article by an economist from McGill University. He had the data to show that eight provinces in this country in the 1990s were basically have not provinces. There was a net inflow of money to help support those provinces during the period of 1993 to 2001. Most of them had provincial Liberal governments or NDP governments and there was a separatist government in Quebec.

The economist had the data for the province of Alberta from 1993 to 2001. The increase of revenues to this town of Ottawa was gigantic during that period of time. There was a huge influx of revenue. Then, mysteriously, from 1995 to 2001, there was a great big jackpot that came from Ontario. Every year Ottawa got more and more, which helped to fund this town. He said that without Alberta's and Ontario's contributions during this period of time this government and this town would have been an absolute fiscal basket case.

He said that the former finance minister, the Prime Minister, should have two great big pictures on the wall in his office, one of Ralph Klein and one of Mike Harris, and he should get down on his hands and knees every day and give thanks for what these two premiers did for the fiscal situation in this country.

It is a disgrace. You people have done nothing to sort out the fiscal house in here. You have wasted and squandered--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

May I remind the hon. member to direct his comments through the Speaker.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to broaden the comments made by my hon. colleague from Prince Albert.

It is true that the economies of Alberta and Ontario have been successful, especially in Alberta. It is a combination, I believe, of a good Conservative government with sound fiscal management. If we look at the challenges that Mike Harris' Conservative government in Ontario had in recovering from the disaster brought on by the Bob Rae--

[An. hon. member]

And Peterson.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Yes, and Peterson before that and NDP and Liberal governments. It is wonderful that this has happened.

However I would not in any way want to minimize the contributions made by the other provinces as well, including Quebec, eastern Canada and Saskatchewan, from which I escaped a number of years ago. Each one of those provinces have successful businesses, entrepreneurs and many workers. They all send income tax in truckloads to Ottawa. It is incumbent upon the Government of Canada in our national capital to manage taxpayer money as a sacred trust.

It certainly is true that we need to adopt fiscal policies that promote a vibrant and healthy economy. In this battle of who should get the credit, there is no doubt in my mind that the provinces and the provincial governments, in what they do and the policies they have, are absolutely critical to the economic well-being of our country.

However they can start a fire but a Liberal government in Ottawa can do a lot of damage by pouring water on that economic fire. It is unfortunate the Liberals have shut it down.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.