Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in the finishing touches on the Conservative budget of May 2.
The bill we have before us today is one of a number of budget implementation bills that deal with the Conservative plan for this country and, as my colleagues from the Liberal Party have said, it is truly a budget without vision. It is truly a budget that is meanspirited, short-sighted, and will hurt Canadians in ways too numerous to mention in the short 10 minutes that I have. Needless to say, when we opposed the budget on May 2, we indicated our general position on the budget, so we oppose this bill.
The part that I find the most interesting, having listened to my colleague, the Liberal finance critic, is the similarity between the Liberal budgets of the last 10 years and the Conservative budget of May 2. It is hard to really tell the difference.
When the Liberal finance critic stands up and talks about a meanspirited budget, I can only think of half a dozen Liberal budgets. When the finance critic for the Liberals stands up and says this budget lacks vision, I can only think of Liberals and a decade of leaderless budgets. When I think of meanspirited, callous, short-sighted, and hurtful budgets, I think of Liberals and Conservatives.
I cannot tell the difference between this budget of May 2 and what the Liberals handed Canadians over the past decade, both equally hurtful, both equally lacking in vision, and both equally missing the mark in terms of what this country needs at this moment.
We described the Conservative budget on May 2 as being a missed opportunity. That it was, just like the last several budgets of the Liberals were missed opportunities because we have been in a significant surplus situation for a good number of years. We have actually considered how Canada could reap the benefits of this new-found wealth, and how for once in this period of 13 or more years, we would see money actually invested in things that matter to Canadians. Money invested in those areas would actually grow the economy, get people working again, and allow people to juggle work and family responsibilities with some comfort and some ease. It would also see that money generated back into the economy in terms of more taxes being paid, a better quality of life for all Canadians, and a benefit for all of us, in fact, the debt going down.
Instead, again we are faced with the same simplistic approach that the Liberals have used for a decade, being used now by the Conservatives, They are using the simplistic approach of simply taking any dividend, any surplus, and putting it against corporate tax cuts and benefits for the wealthy in this country, and putting the money against the debt. That is the simple scenario. That is what we get with Liberals and Conservatives, nothing more. There is no sophisticated analysis, no ability to think in terms of a balanced position, and no understanding of real economics in terms of what it means to actually pay down a debt and how to pay down a debt.
We keep getting efforts that in fact set Canada further and further behind. They are efforts that cut off our nose to spite our face. If we were to take every penny of our dividend and every cent of our surplus, and put it into corporate tax cuts or against our debt, we would do nothing to get ordinary Canadians working to their fullest potentials, contributing to the economy, and paying taxes, and thereby growing the economy and bringing down the debt. That is what we in this party have asked for during the last decade.
We have not asked for a complete allocation of money to go toward program spending. We have not said to not pay down the debt. We have said bring some balance to this place. As long as we have a surplus situation, we should make an annual contribution of significance toward the debt. We should take another part of that surplus and invest it in programs that have a dual purpose: first, they should help Canadians deal with difficult economic and social problems, and second, they should help them contribute back to the economy. They should help them participate in the economy so that we all benefit.
Every economist in this country will demonstrate for us and Conservatives and Liberals right across the board that we do not pay the debt down much faster than a few seconds by putting all of our money against the debt and none into programs that grow the economy.
It is a simple economic fact that if we were to take money and invest it in areas that help people achieve employment that matches their skills, we would reap some benefit. If we were to help women, who would now like to use their skills to get into the workforce because quality day care is available, we would reap the benefit. If we were to put money into pollution saving technologies, we would not only save costs in terms of our health care system but we would invest in a whole new direction of economic growth.
A new set of possibilities opens up this whole area for new green technologies. It will be a new economy that our young people can participate in and feel good about their participation. They will not feel like they are just another cog in a wheel and not feel that they have to handle two or three part time jobs in order to provide for their families. They will not feel they have to give up their quality of life or participation in their community or their church life. They would not have to give up being good parents; being there for their children at school, in their sports days and other activities; and being able to do it all without feeling guilty, without feeling depressed, and without feeling hamstrung by virtue of what the government has done to our economy.
We are here today to make one more plea to the Conservatives because there is a new opportunity unfolding. As my colleagues on the Liberal side have mentioned, we have just criss-crossed the country to hear from Canadians about the next budget. We have heard again what we have heard over the last number of years. Canadians want some of their money invested in programs that will help themselves, their families and other Canadians. They do not want a government to simply ram through a budget and with some deal-making get the Bloc on side to sustain the government, only to see programs that they believe in cut back.
They are appalled number one, by the low balling of the surplus dollars that we have seen now repeated by consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments, which means we as parliamentarians and as Canadians do not have an opportunity to actually deliberate upon where the money should go when there is a surplus. Number two, we have seen through consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments money slip out of this country into tax havens. We just saw it in the news this week. Under the Conservatives, we have $2 billion of lost revenue because Merck Frosst, a large brand name drug company, has shipped that money into a Barbados tax haven to avoid paying taxes. That is just like the Liberals did for years. We saw in the Auditor General's report comments to the effect that tax arrangements for foreign affiliates have eroded Canadian tax revenues of hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 10 years.
Finally, just like Liberals, we have seen with Conservatives that once the budget is through, they slip through cuts to programs that in fact have no mandate. They do not have to return to Parliament but they do it anyway. They cut literacy, job career placement programs for young people, housing, child care, women's resource centres, volunteer initiatives, social economy initiatives, and housing co-ops. They cut anything that is important to the life, breath and depth of our communities. That we speak against.
We speak against this measure, we speak against this budget bill, and we speak against this tradition of meanspirited, visionless budgets by Liberals and Conservatives.