Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to the budget because I found it to be totally lacking in vision and direction. It has a number of little things here and there for various groups, but when we look at it substantively, we realize that it lacks direction and vision and leaves out large segments of our society.
One aspect I find particularly disturbing, although there were a couple I mentioned earlier in a question and comment period, is the fact that aboriginal people are left out in the cold again. After the Liberal government negotiated in Kelowna a very strategic accord which would help aboriginal people with housing, education and water and the Conservatives callously ignored that.
They also callously ignored the child care agreements that the Liberal government had meticulously negotiated with the provinces. They would have provided real child care spaces for people who needed them. The $200 a month allowance per child just does not do it. It does not create any child care spaces.
The other aspect I find very disturbing is this. If we are to compete in a global economy, an economy that includes emerging economies like India, China and Brazil, there is nothing in this budget to encourage that. In fact, we take steps backward.
When the Liberal government came into power, it had to deal with a $42 billion deficit that it inherited from the Conservatives. When we got it under control, within a very short time, the Liberals started to reinvest in R and D and put chairs in universities, which was very well received. We also established the Canada Foundation for Innovation, founded the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and provided overheads to the universities.
Guess what happened? Researchers came back to Canada because they were very pleased with the research environment here. What does that lead to? That leads to invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. That is what we need in the country if we are to create the value added jobs of the future.
What has the government done? It has taken a few steps back. Now we are hearing from researchers that they are going to leave Canada because the research environment is not very conducive to the kind of work they want to do. That is a tragedy after the Liberals built that platform. It could have been built on further. There is an amount in the budget for research, but with other steps the government has taken, it is really moving backward.
There were many other flaws in the budget. I watched the Minister of Finance stand in this place and present the budget. He made a statement along the lines that the problems and disputes with the provinces and territories were gone forever. Not knowing what steps would follow, anyone on this side of the House would have known that to make a statement like this was naive in the extreme. I think he was living in fantasy land. We learned very quickly afterward that many provinces in this country disputed the Minister of Finance's claim that disputes with the provinces and territories were over.
In fact, all colleagues from Atlantic Canada on this side of the House know from the detail in the budget that Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan and other provinces have been shafted. My western colleagues also know that full well. They had a good deal under the Liberal government and the Conservative government took it away and left those provinces swinging.
There are other aspects that I find terribly disturbing. The Government of Canada, under the Conservative government, tried to buy off the province of Quebec with increases in transfers. Another $700 million in equalization was handed to Quebec. The ink was barely dry on the cheque when the premier of Quebec said that he would cut taxes by an equivalent amount. I find that shocking.
I know that technically and legally the province can do what it wants with equalization. However, members of Parliament have heard the provinces and territories complain about the fact that they cannot properly fund health care, education and social programs and that they need more transfers from the federal government. We transferred an additional $41 billion in our last mandate in addition to other amounts we had increased.
The province of Quebec, complaining that it needed money for health care and education, got the additional equalization, and then wanted to cut taxes. It did not work. Even though I am sympathetic, and I know my colleagues on this side of the House and perhaps on the other side of the House are sympathetic as well to the federalist cause, we wanted to see the Liberal government trounce the separatists, which it did. However, I think it was a sad commentary and it showed really that Quebeckers could not be bought.
What it tells us is that in the next round of discussions with the provinces and territories, we will hear their bleats and their complains as very hollow when we know that one of the largest provinces in the country took the equalization and cut taxes.
It is also a sad commentary that the province of Quebec, one of the key provinces in terms of population and economic activity, is a have not province. Of the total equalization that is paid out by the federal government, some $12 billion, roughly $7 billion goes to the province of Quebec. I have argued in the House and other places that it is because of the policies of the separatists that Quebec is a have not province.
The other sad reality of the budget bill is that it tries to implement the provisions with respect to the income trusts. A promise was made by the then leader of the Conservative Party that he would not tax income trusts. Many people in my riding of Etobicoke North and other ridings across Canada, based on that assurance when the Conservatives came into power, put their money into income trusts. Guess what? The Conservative Party reneged on that.
Whether we agree that something had to be done with income trusts, and I for one think we had to make some adjustments, the adjustments could have been made in a much fairer way for those people who were already exposed and who ended up losing about $25 billion to $30 billion. The government has done nothing about that in this budget. Nor has it done so in the budget implementation act.
There are a couple of provisions in the budget that I support. One is the pension income splitting. It is helpful to seniors that they can split income. It in some sense partly addresses some concerns of the citizens in my riding, middle income seniors, who have saved all their lives, put money into pensions and they find that their old age security, notwithstanding their best plans, is taxed back in some cases. It starts to get taxed back at around $55,000. Therefore, pension income splitting does not address that fully, but it is a good initiative.
The other sad reality is the budget reflects some of the priorities of the government, one of them being the fact it will arm the guards at the border of Canada. We heard at the committee that it would cost about $1 billion over 10 years to arm the border guards. That does not include the reclassification of the border guards who will become public safety officers. The number I have is about $15,000 per year in added salary. The $1 billion are to train and equip them with guns.
The RCMP advised us that the deterrence effect would be minimal. In fairness to it, it said that no one knew for sure, but it felt the deterrence effect would be minimal.