Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Laval—Les Îles.
The budget, in my view, is one that is full of losses. Some of them are really quite tragic losses. It is a budget that retreats rather than moves forward. It is hard to know what are the greater losses. Is it the loss of fiscal sanity? Is that the greater loss, or is it for the students in post-secondary education? Is it Kelowna, Kyoto or the child care agreements? It is pretty hard to fathom just what is in fact the greater loss.
I would describe myself candidly as a fiscal conservative. We spent 13 years trying to build up the nation's finances and four years after the Mulroney and Campbell messes, we were finally able to turn the corner and run eight surplus budgets in a row. We turned it from a point of fiscal insanity to a point of fiscal sanity. Yet in 13 short weeks the government is well on its way to trashing 13 years of very hard work. Everything starts with fiscal sanity, so let me compare the situation that the Conservative government finds itself in now, a very flush and robust situation, with what the Liberal government inherited after the Mulroney and Campbell years.
When we inherited the situation there were 12.8 million jobs. Now there are 16.4 million jobs, a full 25% increase in the workforce. Unemployment at that point was 11.5%. Now it is down to 6.3% and is on its way down even further if our numbers continue to hold. Our debt to GDP was approaching at some point 70%. Now it is under 40%. My friends talk about unemployment insurance premiums all the time. At that point it was $3.07 per $100. Now it is $1.86 per $100. Every cent is roughly $100 million in tax relief to employers and employees.
Canada's foreign debt has been reduced from 45% to now just 17%. That means when we owe money we owe it to ourselves rather than to people outside the country. That means we control our financial and fiscal situation rather than banks outside the country controlling our financial and fiscal situation.
I could go through all of the basic credits and the basic income tax thresholds. The basic thresholds are up from $6,800 to $8,600. I see that even the Conservative government did not dare repeal the increase of $500 in the basic personal exemption contained in the November update.
The lowest rate went from 17% down to 15%. In this budget, in a bizarre sort of way to pay for the GST cut, the Conservatives have to raise that 15% back up to 15.5%. The second bracket is down from 26% to 22%. The third bracket is down from 29% to 26% and the surtax has been removed completely.
As a percentage of government revenues, the federal government at one point was collecting somewhere in the order of 17% of GDP. It is now just a touch over 15% of GDP.
We have in fact cleaned up the previous Conservative mess but now the government is well on the way to creating a further fiscal mess that will play itself out over time.
It may be good politics to reduce the GST by one percentage point. I am quite prepared to concede that point, that in fact it is good politics, but frankly it is just plain stupid economics. It is pretty well the dumbest thing one would want to do.
I would suggest that members go to the Department of Finance website and look at its category of tax relief and look through the various areas in which we could give Canadians tax relief. What is the best for the economy? What is the best for the prosperity agenda?