Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand today and talk about the budget and the implications it will have on Canadians. It is quite interesting also to listen to the discussion and debate that goes on by different members in the House on who sold out who and so on. The reason we all here is that we want to build a great Canada. That is the reason I asked to make a few comments today in the budget implementation debate.
I would like to begin my remarks by reminding Canadians that the Conservatives inherited from the Liberals the strongest economy and the best fiscal situation that any newly elected government in the history of Canada has ever been fortunate enough to receive. I wonder what will happen over the next period of time, whoever forms the government, and whether they will ever have an opportunity to inherit such a rich surplus as the Conservatives had in contrast to what was left to us by the Conservatives in 1993, which was one huge mess.
Under that last Conservative government, the Canadian economy was in serious trouble. Conservative spending was wildly out of control. Annual deficits had skyrocketed to close to $40 billion. Overall federal debt had ballooned to nearly 70% of the gross domestic product. Interest rates were very high. All of us felt those. The federal government itself had become a heavy burden on money markets, thus driving up borrowing costs for provincial and municipal governments as well as businesses, consumers and our constituents.
There was no real economic growth or job creation happening. Unemployment rose into the double digits. Consumer and business confidence was very low. That was a very difficult time for Canada. With the encouragement and the steady support of thousands of Canadians, the Liberals set out in 1993-94 to turn things around, and that is exactly what we did.
We cleaned up the nation's finances. We re-established the federal government's ability to invest properly in Canadians' leading social and economic priorities, while balancing the books, and we succeeded in that. We balanced the books in 1997 and brought down eight consecutive surplus budgets following that. We reduced the federal debt in absolute terms by more than $63 billion and as a proportion of the total economy by 45%. The debt is now on a steady downward track, scheduled to decline to 25% of the GDP by 2015 and then to no more than 20% of the GDP by 2020. At least that was our plan.
Inflation declined, interest rates came down and have remained low and stable. Federal taxes have been reduced by more than $100 billion since 2000 and another six-year $50 billion tax cut plan was initiated in 2005. Unfortunately, it was abandoned by the new Conservative government.
The Canadian economy has generated more than 3.5 million new jobs since 1993. Participation in the labour market is at near record high levels while unemployment has plummetted to a 32-year low, which we all can enjoy in this country. Canada enjoyed 12 straight years of unprecedented economic growth under the careful management and the fiscally responsible Liberal government.
The Liberals are very proud of our fiscal record. In fact we boast the best fiscal performance in all the G-7 group of world leading economies and the best fiscal record of any Canadian government since 1867. When my colleagues across the various parties throw jibes and words and all kinds of comments around, they should realize that all of us worked hard, all of us as Canadians, to get where we are today.
This brings me to my many concerns about the Conservative budget that we are going to deal with today. This budget clearly lacks any vision for Canada to take us into the future. It is a simple case of some short term gain and long term pain for a great country that we have all worked so hard to build over the last 13 years.
The government inherited the best fiscal situation in Canadian history and is failing Canadians by neglecting the future challenges and moving us forward.
The budget fails to address climate change and, clearly, is cancelling Kyoto and our commitments to Kyoto. It fails to provide a real child care choice for parents or a plan to create child care spaces, yet it has money to build more jails. It fails to maintain fiscal responsibility by not investing carefully in innovation. It fails to provide tax relief for low and middle income Canadians. In fact, it increases taxes for low and middle income Canadians. More important, it fails to exhibit any vision for Canada's future prosperity, with no significant investments in education or innovation, nothing to lead us forward.
Unfortunately, the budget neglects to make any significant investments in those areas. The Liberal government had a concrete vision that would have helped put us at the forefront of competitiveness and innovation.
This lacklustre and visionless budget contains virtually nothing in this regard. For example, for university research our last fiscal update provided $2.5 billion. The Conservative budget provides $200 million.
For student aid, our plan, which we were able to offer because our fiscal house was in order, provided $6,000 per student for tuition over a four year program. That was a huge help for students to encourage many coming from low income families to go to school. The Conservative plan provides $80 for textbooks.
Under the Liberal government, the best and brightest flocked to Canada due to our sound investment in research and development. How will Canada compete on the world stage in the future with a visionless budget and a visionless country? How can Canada continue to nation build when it is stuck with a government and a budget that cares more about politics than sound fiscal management?
The fiscal irresponsibility of the budget is completely unacceptable. The government is throwing fiscal prudence out the window and spending savings from program cuts before it even has the money in the bank. This approach will bring Canada dangerously close to a deficit position again.
The budget also puts ideology before economics and policy and fails to provide a sound economic vision for the future.
The budget also fails to provide real tax relief for low and middle income Canadians. Eliminating Liberal income tax cuts in favour of a 1% GST cut has been panned by every serious economist in the country as a plan that will benefit higher income Canadians at the expense of those who need it most.
The Conservatives are actually increasing income taxes, which means many people who received a refund in the 2005 year will probably end up paying more in 2006. The budget actually raises income tax rates in the lowest tax bracket. Despite the government claiming to be helping Canadian families, it has raised the tax rate from 15% to 15.5% for the lowest income Canadians and then denied it did it. Low income families need our support, yet the government is quietly raising its taxes. Did it think no one would notice?
The Conservative government has also quietly cancelled the program which helped low income households cope with high energy prices and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The EnerGuide program for low income households, a five year program initiated by the Liberals in November and endorsed by all parties in this House, was making a real difference for low income families in my riding of York West, and I am sure in many other ridings across this country.
Worse yet, the government chose to hide the cancellation of this program. I found out when a constituent called. When my assistant phoned, we were told the program had been cancelled. At least the government should have had the courage to tell us upfront what it was doing when it was cancelling it.
Nothing is more important to Canadians than our children and our grandchildren. We must lay the foundation for our country's future prosperity and success. As members will know, the Liberal government successfully negotiated agreements with all the 10 provinces last year. Through these agreements, the federal government would transfer almost $5 billion over five years to the provinces and territories, based on the principles quality, universal inclusiveness and accessibility.
We will notice that in the five priorities there was no new money to go into the health care system. Where will that money come from when we talk about a guarantee for long term wait times and elimination of those waits?