Debates of June 16th, 2005

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleague from Brandon—Souris. He is doing a great job and the constituents of his area should be very proud to have him here. I am certainly proud to have him next door to Portage—Lisgar. He is an important member of the House.

There was an editorial piece on Monday that described this as “[The Prime Minister's] folly”, the son of Paul Martin, Sr. is who the editorial was referring to. It said it was a great government garage sale and give away.

I believe that this budget deal is an insult to the organizers of garage sales coast to coast. Those people organize, they plan, they take time, and they look at the system of display. They work hard to price appropriately. They ensure there is an accountability regime. They ensure that they can keep appropriate track of everything at the end of the day. None of that was done in the no-tell motel. I want to ask the member for Brandon—Souris, does he think, as I do, that this budget is just an insult to organized people and prudent fiscal management in this country?

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, if we were to take Bill C-48 to a bank, the only thing we would hear is the door slamming as the banker asks us to leave because he would not lend us a penny. The government is asking taxpayers to foot a bill with no plan and no organization. It is not a business plan. It is two pieces of paper with a little bit of scribbling on it that adds up to $4.6 billion of taxpayers' hard earned money being spent recklessly by the government.

[Werner Schmidt, Conservative, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize that this debate has been labelled a budget debate, but I do not think that is what have. We have a debate on legislation but not budget legislation. The title of the bill is “An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments”. It is not a budget bill at all. It is simply an authorization for the Minister of Finance to spend some money.

Let us compare that to the title of Bill C-43. I notice the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance has already recognized the significance of this difference. He recognizes that this is merely a bill to give him carte blanche to spend some money. If the hon. parliamentary secretary would listen, he would understand. Bill C-43 says, “An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 23, 2005”. Notice that in the titles we have a complete differentiation between the legislations.

I would like to make a further comparison. This is a complete copy of Bill C-48. There is one good thing about this. At least it conserved paper. It has exactly one page printed on both sides, but four pages are blank.

[An hon. member]

A $4 billion page.

[Werner Schmidt, Conservative, Kelowna, BC]

We have a $4 billion budget on one page. Let us compare that with Bill C-43, which is 110 pages. There obviously has to be some major difference between the legislations.

I agree that Bill C-43 probably represents something just under $200 billion. Bill C-48 represents $4.5 billion. Bill C-43 goes into all kinds of details, saying what will happen, where it will happen, how it will happen, who will be responsible for the spending, what the objectives are and how it will be accounted for. We can measure the purposes that have been set, how that money will be spent and then determine whether the results have been achieved. If we compare that with Bill C-48, there is absolutely nothing even close to that in the bill.

Let me read a couple of the sections. It is amazing. The Minister of Finance has the authority, according to Bill C-48, in conjunction with the governor in council, to “develop and implement programs and projects”. It does not say what programs, it does not say what plans and it does not say anything about the projects.

Second, he can “enter into an agreement with the government of a province, a municipality or any other organization or any person”. He does not have to; he may.

Third, he may “make a grant or contribution or any other payment”. Subsection (e) says he can “incorporate a corporation any shares or memberships of which, on incorporation, would be held by, on behalf of or in trust for the Crown”. That means that the Minister of Finance can set up corporations, the Government of Canada will own them and there is absolutely no recourse. He just buys a company.

However, it goes beyond that. The Minister of Finance can “acquire shares or memberships of a corporation that, on acquisition, would be held by, on behalf of or in trust for the Crown”. That means under this bill the minister can now buy a corporation which at the moment is privately owned or owned by an organization and transfer that ownership from an individual to the Government of Canada. He is authorized to do that. He is also authorized to make expenditures for affordable housing, foreign aid and training programs.

I do not think there is anyone in the House who is not aware that education and training programs, education in particular, is the jurisdiction of the provinces. Yet we have the Minister of Finance authorized to get into what is a jurisdiction of the provinces. He may make arrangements with the provinces covered under another section, but he is not obligated to do so. He can unilaterally move into the situation.

My colleagues have indicated so clearly where this agreement took place and how it was actually formulated. I do not know. I was not there. However, I will say one thing for sure, I do not know how they can make Canadians think they are being responsible by writing on a single piece of paper the expenditure of $4.6 billion of our hard earned money without any particular plan or direction and with only vague generalities, except let us spend the money here and there.

Let us go into some of these areas.

The Liberals will do training programs. What kind of training programs? Will they be university training programs? Will they be training programs of a technical nature in a technical institute? Will they be partnership type programs where industry is part of it, or where a university may be a part of it or a technical institute may be a part of it? Will they be apprenticeship programs? Will they be new kinds of programs where innovations, technology and new development take place? None of that is described in any way, shape or form.

Let us go into the housing area. What kind of housing will the government be building? It does not give us any indication. Will it be aboriginal housing? It is supposed to be affordable housing. Will it be affordable housing in Swift Current? What is the criteria of affordable housing? There is no indication as to who will do it, whether it will be done through one of the agencies that exist in Canada now or whether it will be done through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation or any other organization. There is no indication as to how this will be done.

Therefore, how could we hold the government to account? There is no way. It cannot be done, not according to this bill. It is simply a blank cheque deferred into the future some time and it can spend the money.

Guess what. This money is supposed to come out of the surplus. First, we take $2 billion off the top and devote that to debt repayment. Then if there is anything left, we can spend another $4.5 billion. We know the budget that currently exists will have at least that kind of money, so I think the money will be there to do that. However, if it is not there, then the minister is unable to spend this money.

Therefore, it creates a real problem. It creates a problem for us as taxpayers. We are being asked to fork over $4.6 billion and we have no assurances as to how this money will be spent. It hurts us because we are being asked to put that money forward. Then we have a group of people who are expecting something for this money. People who do not have affordable housing now think that it will be provided. People who do not have adequate training now think that will be provided but it may not happen. There are no assurances.

I want to compare this with what happened under Bill C-43. I am only going to deal with two parts and how different Bill C-43 is from Bill C-48.

I will read only one part of it. It has to do with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. This is one particular provision. It is only one part of 24.

For Canadians who are listening, there are 10 pages essentially of detailed information as to how the Asia Pacific Foundation will help the development of economic development through our relationships with Asia-Pacific countries. That is one area which really becomes very specific.

Then we can go on to another section, which is every bit as significant to us. That is the section that deals with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador additional fiscal equalization offset payments. We also have 10 pages of detail as to how the money will be spent, what it will be spent on, how the organization will be set up and its responsibilities and how it can be held to account if it does not spend the money it was asked to spend.

Those are only two sections of the 24 in Bill C-43 that are specific. There are some things in it that obviously we would have some questions about, but at least we have a direction and at least we have a clear indication of what is going to happen. That is not the case with Bill C-48.

In Bill C-48 there is no accountability. There is no responsibility. It is simply a blank cheque deferred into the future. The Liberals are going to spend $4.5 billion of Canadian money and they are going to spend it the way they want to on any particular day.

That is not the way to run the country. That is not the way to spend $4.5 billion. Canadians should feel insulted by this kind of behaviour.

[John McKay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I quite appreciate the hon. member and his contribution to this chamber. I know when this Parliament ends sometime in the far distant future, this will be his last session in the chamber. He has contributed mightily to the workings of this chamber. That is the last nice thing I am going to say about him.

I want to direct the hon. member's attention to the phrase “enabling legislation”. The hon. member misses the fundamental point that this is enabling legislation. He made a big point of saying that the minister may spend in these particular areas. However, if he goes back to Bill C-43 or to the 2004 budget, Bill C-33, he will see exactly parallel language. The minister may spend in these particular areas. It does not mean that the minister shall spend. It does not mean that the minister must spend. The minister may spend because it is enabling legislation.

I put it to the hon. member that in language Bill C-43 is identical to Bill C-48.

[Werner Schmidt, Conservative, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I love that question. That is absolutely fantastic. This word “may” is great. Coming from the hon. parliamentary secretary that is doubly great.

I thank the hon. member very much for his very kind and complimentary remarks. However, I really cannot help but build on the word “may”.

The finance minister may spend money either under Bill C-43 or Bill C-48 or both. Does this then mean that this budget may happen or it may not? Is this another one of those promises that will never be realized? Is that really what this is all about. We have a Liberal government that may do what it says it will do? That is an insult of extreme proportions. Talk about a vacuous statement, “May do something, but we probably won't”.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to build a little on what the member just said. The bill actually does talk about how the government may spend. Does he have any comments about how the NDP has been sucked into this? We have talked all night about this cute little deal that they made in the no-tell-motel. The parliamentary secretary stood and basically said to the NDP, “You don't have the deal you thought you did”.

Would the member talk a little about the integrity, not only of the government but of the NDP for being so foolish as to get into bed with a corrupt Liberal government.

[Werner Schmidt, Conservative, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that question gives me the opportunity to use another word. It seems to me that not only is this a question of integrity, it is a question of gullibility.

Is it really possible that the NDP members, after the history they have seen of the Liberal Party, would believe that this kind of thing could actually happen? I think that is really what is happening here.

In a sense I would wish that their gullibility is not necessarily rewarded, but maybe it will be and they will get nothing.

[Jim Gouk, Conservative, Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague from Kelowna—Lake Country, eloquent as always. I listened in particular to what he said about how we had $4.8 billion or $4.6 billion--

[An hon. member]

It's $4.5 billion.

[Jim Gouk, Conservative, Southern Interior, BC]

Whatever the figure is, with the Liberals, it is “What's a few hundred million?”

There is no detail whatsoever. As the parliamentary secretary says, this is enabling legislation and they can spend this money as they wish.

Would the hon. member comment on the fact that is exactly what they did with the Quebec advertising scandal. They created a pool of money and then they spent it the way they saw fit.

[Werner Schmidt, Conservative, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is true, they did indeed spend it as they wanted to, but the other interesting thing is that they did not even spend it in terms of the intent of the program itself.

The intent of the program was to promote federalism in Canada but what they really did was take about half of it for that program and it actually was spent in advancing the cause of federalism and the other roughly half of it went to their friends. That was not just having the freedom to do something but that was actually fraudulently using money in a way that it was never intended.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to follow the member for Kelowna—Lake Country. I also wish him the very best in the future as he moves on to new challenges in a couple of years.

I want to give my colleagues in the House the four top reasons, as I see them, why they should not support the bill. The first reason would be that this is nothing but broken promises.

I just want to read from the actual Liberal budget because it is fascinating. It states:

A commitment to sound financial management is never easy and it is never over. It is not something to be done once or just for a while and then set aside. It requires the steady, unrelenting application of rigorous discipline and vigilance....

That lasted a few weeks and then in the motel we found out what the threshold of rigorous discipline and vigilance was. That was over quick. Who lit whose cigarette after it was over?

Then we have this gem. This is another broken promise. “Debt reduction is not something we do...”. Now we know in this bill of course they capped debt reduction. They cut it down immensely in favour of throwing money at general categories without specific plans or measurable goals, nothing achievable there that the Auditor General could audit or to which we could hold them accountable.

Here is what the finance minister said in the budget speech, and boy, to some it rang true that day. He said:

Debt reduction is not something we do to please the economists. It's something we do to benefit Canadians. Reducing debt in a reasonable and measured way relieves a big burden on future generations. It saves billions of dollars in servicing charges, facilitates credit rating, lower interest rates, rising standards of living and most importantly this is something the vast majority of Canadians believe is the right thing to do.

I guess they did the wrong thing when they changed their mind and broke that promise.

There is a second reason. “Haste makes waste”, my gramma used to say and she was right and she was a lot smarter than the people who signed this deal because what it does is make waste. The best example of wasteful haste I could give in recent years is the following.

In December 2001 the Auditor General released an examination of the relief for heating expense program. Parliamentary oversight was weakened as a consequence of this, it said. It said that only about $250 to $350 million of the over $1.4 billion that was paid out in that program actually went to the people it was supposed to go to but the government had to get it out as quickly as possible. Heaven knows, there was urgency, there was power to be held on to.

The government threw money at the problem which is exactly what it is doing here. However only about 15% to 25% of that money actually went to the people it was supposed to go to. The 600,000 low and modest income Canadians who needed it received nothing but 4,000 Canadian taxpayers who did not live in Canada got it, as did 7,500 dead people, which is where Liberal ideas go. I think it has been estimated that 1,600 prisoners in federal institutions also received a subsidy cheque from the government. That is what vote buying is. That is all that it is and that is what it is again.

Those were a couple of reasons but let me give another reason. One cannot teach old Liberal dogs new tricks. What I mean by that has to do with the way in which the government throws money at a problem. It does that because it thinks it demonstrates compassion. However it is called conspicuous compassion when the government throws money at a problem saying that it cares because it is throwing someone else's money at the problem.

The Liberals signed a deal with the NDP because, as they say, they care so much about aboriginal kids who need post-secondary education.

This does not take a long term memory to know. Last November the Auditor General, after having examined the post-secondary education program run out of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, released a report stating:

--significant weaknesses exist in the Department's management and accountability framework for the program. The Department has not clearly defined and documented its roles and responsibilities, the way that it allocates funds to First Nations does not ensure equitable access to as many students as possible, and it does not know whether the funds allocated have been used for the purpose intended.

That is what the Auditor General said, “throw money at the problem”. That money will never get to the kids who need it. There is not a chance. There is anecdotal evidence that fewer aboriginal children in the country are getting these funds now than was the case five years ago. Now we are going to throw more money at the problem.

That is the kind of idiocy we have been presented in the budget bill. I will not stand for it and I know my party will not stand for it. This is not the way we look after aboriginal young people. This is not the way we look at the health care needs of Canadians. This is not the way we look after the environmental priorities and the housing priorities of Canadians. It is not going to happen.

The big problem with this is the blank post-dated cheque that the government and the NDP, working together in isolation and overnight, decided they wanted to lure Canadians with. The finance minister is embarrassed by this legislation or he would be here defending it. Every time I ask the parliamentary secretary about it at committee, he just says “you made me do it”. It reminds me of the comedian Flip Wilson who always said “the devil made me do it”.

The Liberals say that the Conservatives made them sign that deal. They will not defend it because they know it is wrong. Governments through the generations in this country have tried diligently to get a handle on bureaucratic growth and excessive expenditure. Without constraints, every bureaucracy grows and so every government has systematically put in place expenditure review processes that manage the money, that try to manage it down and get a handle on it and get control over it. It is hard to do. It is like a ratchet. It is hard to ratchet it down but it is easy to ratchet it up.

When these guys promised overnight to send $4.6 billion more out, the message they sent was a bad one. I have to say that the Prime Minister's legacy is being trashed by this bill. I have to give him credit for leading an exercise in expenditure review with no end runs allowed. Every department had to do their share. John Manley tried to run out and run around the end. He tried to escape but he could not do it. Everyone was going to do their part. Even with all the work and effort they put into over months and months, they still could not get the cuts they wanted because they did not have the support of the bureaucracy.

What kind of support are they going to get from the bureaucracy now? They will not get any support to cut but they will get lots of support to spend.

They have to ratchet up because most of the commitments they are making require municipal and provincial partnerships.

When I go home my friends keep reminding me that I always talk about federal government spending, but they then go on to tell me that it all comes out of one pocket. They tell me that it does not matter whether it is their school stuff, their property stuff, their provincial stuff or their federal stuff, all the money comes out of their pocket. They tell me that they work half a year to pay taxes and that they would like us to do a better job of getting control on our spending. This bill does not do it. The bill does the opposite. It sends the message that it is okay to votes the old-fashioned way.

The biggest heartfelt objection I have to the bill is the false hopes that it sends to the people who care about these issues. When it tells aboriginal people we are going to spend more money on houses and no one is going to own them, we have not addressed the real problem. Most houses last less than half as long as the average housing stock because no one owns them. Aboriginal people are smart people. They understand that. They know we have to have a system brought into this country, and 62 reserves I know of have done it, but the other 95% have not because there is no leadership here.

What those guys do is insane. Insanity is best defined as doing things the same way we always have in the past and expecting different results, and that is what the Liberals are doing here yet again.

The false hopes of people who care about young aboriginal people, who care about the environment, have been inflated with these bold and airy promises. It is vacuous, it is phony and it is false, and the Liberals should be ashamed of themselves for entering into the agreement.

However I know, as Benjamin Disraeli used to say, the Liberal Party is an organized hypocrisy dedicated solely and exclusively to the pursuit of power, so I expect nothing different from them.

I will conclude by saying that what I find most objectionable about the conduct of the government has been defined clearly for me in this last number of days and weeks. The difference between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party is that the Liberal Party thinks that everyone can be bought, that everyone is for sale. They believe everyone has a price tag and we, on this side of the House, believe in principle. We will stand for the principles we believe in and we are standing for them now. I do not know where the Liberals are but they may be hiding under their desks.

The fact remains that when the Liberals try to buy their way out of a vote buying scandal, one of the worst in Canadian history, by buying more votes, that is a shame. When they try to buy their way to power by buying the NDP with bold general promises that they will not fulfill, that is a shame. When they buy a billionaire, ladies and gentlemen, I guess they think all of us can be bought.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I sit on the finance committee with the hon. member. I cannot help but feel the degree of bitterness that he shows toward our Liberal Party and probably to the majority of Canadians.

We have a bill here that states that if there is a surplus exceeding $2 billion that money will be allocated for some very noteworthy and very good purposes, such as housing, post-secondary education and training, public transit and foreign aid.

It is disappointing to hear the adjectives and the nouns he used in describing the bill. Most of us come to this Parliament looking for hope and looking at a vision for this country. He seems to be looking backwards to some other attribute that he wants us to strive for.

Would the member give us an indication as to which of those four noble ventures in the bill he opposes? Is he opposed to post-secondary education, housing, public transit or foreign aid? Which ones does the member want to cut out?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe the member was listening. I think he was readying himself for a response unfortunately,

What I have tried to make clear to him is that the flaws, which are so numerous in this bill, are flaws largely of ignorance on the part of the government. For example, we have the promise to spend more money on aboriginal housing which no one will own. We have the lack of willingness on the part of the government to address the absence of matrimonial property rights. Every other Canadian enjoys the property rights that we have all taken for granted in our lives, except aboriginal Canadians.

The member refers to my comments as bitter. I am bitter on behalf of my aboriginal constituents who feel they deserve the same rights as he enjoys and takes for granted.

Yes, I want to very vocally and very enthusiastically support the position of our party that matrimonial property rights should be brought to bear on reserve. Why does that matter? It matters immensely because if the government proceeds, as it proposes, to build more houses and housing stock and so on in the absence of those rights, then women and men will occupy them as houses but they will not own them as homes.

The fact is that if they happen to go through a marital breakup, what normally happens, unfortunately, in a patriarchal society, which is what most of the reserves are today, is that the woman loses everything. She loses her home. She may lose her family. She loses her possessions.

If the member does not think these are serious issues then he should stand up and tell me why he does not think that. If he thinks they are serious he should stand in this place and join with us and oppose this silly piece of legislation.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I was not intending to speak to this but I heard a member of the Conservative Party talk about principles and I could not resist a jab or two.

I am wondering if those are the same principles he is talking about when the Conservatives were out here on Parliament Hill with pigs and complaining about the pension plan saying that any member of Parliament who took a pension plan was a pig and a porker? Now I notice that their party is in the pension plan.

Is that the same principles as when they talked about Stornoway saying that they would turn Stornoway into a bingo hall? Is that the same principles they had when a member of their own party has a concealed tape in a discussion with the minister? Is that the same principles they have when someone makes an agreement with someone from a political party and then breaks it to join another political party?

I am wondering if those are the same principles that he anticipates all of us as Canadians to appreciate and understand?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not choose to respond in the same manner as the member because I do not wish to denigrate the members in this chamber.

[An hon. member]

You already did.

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

I did not and I think it is important for the member to understand. I am not going to refer to jewel thieves nor am I going to refer to shoplifters in this place. I will not do that because I do not believe that would be fair or right.

I will ignore the historical accuracy of those charges which may be levied against socialists who formerly resided in this place but I will not go there.

What I would do instead is say that I think the member should understand that he specifically addressed the issue of money management in terms of the pension and changes came about as a result of the MPs pension, which his party deserves absolutely zero credit for achieving. In fact, his party said nothing in regard to those issues.

The people who pushed for those changes and the people who deserve credit for achieving those changes in reducing the amount of the MPs' pensions and making it a much more reasonable plan reside right now in this caucus. They are the former members of this caucus who on principle, many of them, sacrificed greatly. They sacrificed greatly financially. It is a price that the member should respect and should understand that those people were willing to pay to achieve changes.

Change is hard to achieve. Again, I would invite the member to join with us in supporting matrimonial property rights for aboriginal people. I would invite him to stand with us and support a home ownership program for aboriginal Canadians so that they do not have to live as tenants for life on their own land.

I would encourage the member, rather than engaging in the diatribe and rhetoric which he is known for, to join with us rather than buying into a silly deal which promises him much but will deliver little. He should abide by those principles that he himself holds dear rather than accusing others.

[Jim Gouk, Conservative, Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start this evening with a quote from Scott Reid, the Prime Minister's communications director: “But we can guarantee that we will play no part in compromising one bill for another”.

Further to that, the government House leader is reported to have pounded his fist on the table at the caucus meeting yesterday and stated that he had made no deals with anyone over any legislation.

Maybe he has not, but his party certainly has. In fact, that is the very reason we are here tonight debating Bill C-48, which is nothing more than a deal made by the Liberals on legislation. That deal includes the creation of this bill and the modifying of Bill C-43 to remove some of the previously promised tax relief measures. Once again the Liberal Party has been caught red-handed in stretching the truth to the breaking point.

We have a lot of serious things being said tonight, but I want to talk about the tax side because we have many members who are going to speak on many issues of this bill. Removal of tax relief was one of the things the Liberals did in order to create a window of money to buy the NDP to support them. In fact, the leader of the NDP was not actually bought, as I heard someone suggest one time; he was just rented for a short period of time.

Some time ago an article appeared in the Salmon Arm Lakeshore News . It was an article written by a local financial adviser, who is a regular contributor, to try to put taxes and tax relief in perspective in terms of how they work in Canada. This is something that the NDP in particular might want to listen to. The article as written by this individual states:

I was having lunch at PJ's with one of my favourite clients last week and the conversation turned to the [provincial] government's recent round of tax cuts.

“I'm opposed to those tax cuts,” the retired college instructor declared, “because they benefit the rich. The rich get much more money back than ordinary taxpayers like you and I and that's not fair.”

“But the rich pay more in the first place”, I argued, “so it stands to reason they'd get more money back.”

I could tell that my friend was unimpressed by this meagre argument. Even college instructors are a prisoner of the myth that the “rich” somehow get a free ride in Canada.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let's put tax cuts in terms everybody can understand. Suppose that every day, 10 men go to PJ's for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If it was paid the way we pay our taxes, the first four men would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. The 10 men ate dinner at the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until the owner through them a curve.

“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.”

Now dinner for the 10 only costs $80. The first four are unaffected. They still eat for free. Can you figure out how to divvy up the $20 savings among the remaining six so that everyone gets his fair share?

The men realize that $20 divided by 6 is $3.33, but if they subtract that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.

The restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of $59. Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20”, declared the sixth man, pointing to the tenth, “and he got $7!”

“Yeah, that's right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!”

“That's true,” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks.”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor.”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short!

And that, boys and girls and college instructors, is how Canada's tax system works.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Switzerland and the Caribbean.

And we know where a certain Prime Minister has all his cruise ships, do we not?

Let us talk about this legislation. Tax cuts were proposed and then yanked out in order to pay the NDP to rent its leader for a few weeks so he would support the Liberals.

First, that affects job creation. When the Liberals loads taxes on businesses, that is one of the expenses businesses have to meet in order to do business. Businesses will operate only when they can make a profit. If they cannot make a profit, they have to do one of two things.

They have to add that cost on so the consumers pay more. In turn, they also fund the government in yet another way by the consumer prices they pay, never mind paying their taxes, and then the businesses from which they buy their goods can pay the taxes this government extracts from them.

Then there is the alternative. If their competitors can do better, particularly with foreign trade, then our companies start closing down. We cannot compete with the United States, let us say, which has much lower taxes than we do, both at the corporate and the individual level. Our companies start closing down. They start cutting jobs. Canadians end up out of work. This is just like what is happening in the car industry right now.

The government has sold out Canadians. It could have taken the tax cut, which could have helped job creation. It could have reduced costs for consumers on necessary goods. Instead, it used that on a wish list for the NDP. What is really a crime is that, having cut out the tax reductions from the government's bill, the parliamentary secretary himself just a few short minutes ago admitted that this is money that may never get spent, which the NDP should be taking note of.

Let us talk about the NDP members and their priorities, because they were the ones who laid out the priorities on this particular bill. I had a group of NDP MPs, including one sitting in the House right now, come to my riding.

I could be mistaken, but I believe that all the elected NDP members of Parliament from British Columbia came to my riding. They said they were there because they wanted to find out what the people of my riding wanted, and they wanted to know the priorities of people in every area. I was at the meeting they held, an open house with wine and cheese. I said I was very happy to see them because I work very hard to get the things that are necessary for the people of my riding. I said that in a minority government in particular we would be looking for help and we would certainly welcome their help. I said we were glad they were there to find out the priorities of the people of my riding.

The NDP members negotiated $4.6 billion worth of changes to the budget with the Liberal government. How did those changes affect my riding?

One of the really big things that has hit my riding is the softwood lumber dispute. It is devastating. We are a very forest dependent riding. When they had a gun to the heads of the Liberals, did the NDP members put anything in their budget to provide compensation for individuals, companies and communities affected by the softwood lumber dispute throughout British Columbia, where a large majority of NDP members come from? Not one dime. It was not a priority for them. Foreign aid was a priority, but not B.C. aid, not aid for B.C. communities and aid for forestry workers. It was not on their agenda. It was not their priority.

They also found out in my riding that it was very important for people to get some help with the BSE problem with cattle. We have a lot of ranchers in areas of my riding. What did the NDP ask the Liberals for on that? Not one dollar. The NDP asked for money for housing, which the parliamentary secretary to the minister said may never get spent, but not for one dollar to help the cattle industry in my riding and throughout British Columbia, particularly through the rural area where they claim they have strong support. There was not one dollar asked for there.

We have a bogus budget that the parliamentary secretary to the minister says may never get spent. We have the priorities of the NDP that do not meet the priorities of the area they claim they most represent.

This whole thing is a sham. It should be shut down. It should be stopped. That would be the best thing we could do for the taxpayers of this country.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I want to question the member across the way about one of the specific provisions that is set out in Bill C-48.

As the member knows, Bill C-48, assuming that the surplus funds are available, deals with specific funds for affordable housing, public transit, access to public education and foreign aid. The specific issue on which I want to question the member is public transit. As the member knows, there were certain amounts of funds allocated to increase and enhance the public transit systems in all provinces across Canada.

In the province that I come from the amount announced was on a per capita basis. It was very favourably received by all people in the province, it seems. That seems to be the case in other provinces. The first part of my question is whether the people in his province have that broad level of support and acceptance which I certainly found in my province.

However, right now the people who support this increased funding for public transportation are met with the spectacle of the Conservatives here in the House arguing against it and attempting to defeat that provision.

My question is twofold. Is there any support at all in his province for this increased funding for public support? Second, why is his party so opposed to the Government of Canada funding increased support for public transit?

[Jim Gouk, Conservative, Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was trying to understand his first question. He asked if there is any increased support for public support. I am sure he got his words mixed up in trying to figure out some kind of intelligent question to ask.

With regard to public transit, one of the things that the fuel tax rebate is going to address is public transit. The government would like to say that this is one of its great brainchildren.

In actual fact, I am on record as far back as 1996, not in Hansard but in committee evidence, and we still have the transcripts of that, questioning in a meeting the then finance minister who is now the Prime Minister of the country. Back then I was trying to get a commitment from the government to give back some of the revenue from the fuel tax the government imposed on people, to help pay for public transit, highways and things of that nature.

With regard to the bill, if that is what the member was trying to get out in his stumbling way, if that is he wanted to ask with regard to this particular legislation, then I refer him back to the parliamentary secretary, who asked a question of my colleague from Kelowna—Lake Country, wherein he said very clearly that under the terms of the bill some of this money may never be spent.

The minister may spend it or may not. He may spend it here or he may spend it there. If the member is really concerned about funding for public transit, why does the government not write a document that clearly spells out where the money is going, when the money is going and how much people are getting?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his last 12 years in the House of Commons and also for the speech he gave tonight. I think the example he gave in his speech was remarkable. It was great and it really brought home the point.

As we talk about budgets, I think most Canadians understand that we have to live within a framework of what we earn or make and we have to make sure that the money going out matches the money coming in. We prioritize the basics in life, the food, clothing, shelter and all those things. Canadian families understand that.

However, we have a government that has over many years prioritized things such as the gun registry, has defended scandals such as the HRDC boondoggle, and has defended on a daily basis the sponsorship program and its $250 million. We have a government that is getting bigger all the time. I want to quote the former president of the United States, Ronald Reagan. He said that government, especially big government, “is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other”.

Could the member comment on the huge appetite for taking in tax dollars that this government has and on exactly where the other end is pointing?

[Jim Gouk, Conservative, Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his very enlightened question. I would just point out a couple of examples of the irresponsibility of the government.

First of all there was ad scam. Never mind the scandal of what the Liberals did with the money; they could not even get that right. They budgeted $250 million and now we find out from the forensic auditor that they spent $350 million. There is the firearms registry. They budgeted that one at $2 million and now it is approaching $2 billion. Finally, the biggest scandal of all, when we hear those guys talking about the deficit that they inherited, I would like to remind them that the largest deficit for current dollars ever hit in this Parliament was under a Liberal finance minister by the name of Jean Chrétien.