Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your re-election, not that I question the wisdom of the good people of Haliburton, but nevertheless, congratulations in any event.
I want to also thank the people of Scarborough—Guildwood for their kindness and generosity in re-electing me for the fifth time in 11 years. I too might question their wisdom. Nevertheless, it is indeed an honour and a privilege to serve in this place.
Unfortunately the Speech from the Throne is more of the same old, same old. Having mismanaged the nation's finances for the last two and half years, the Prime Minister is now begging for forgiveness.
We have gone from a position of 10 years of Liberal surpluses and in two and a half short years the Conservative government has now managed to achieve a deficit. The warnings and the advice of the Liberal Party of Canada fell on deaf ears and we are now facing an exaggerated form of economic turmoil in a greatly weakened position because of the actions of the government. Ten years of Liberal prudence has been thrown out in two years by the Conservatives. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is correct in saying that we are staring down the barrel of many deficits to come.
The first part of the Speech from the Throne recites many accomplishments, many Liberal achievements over the previous years, Liberal achievements without attribution, may I say.
The Prime Minister, I know, is fond of plagiarism, but even this plagiarism is on a grand scale. Paying down the debt, investments in health and education, controlling spending, and a sound public pension plan were inheritances of the Martin and Chrétien governments. It would have been nice, although not expected, had the Prime Minister at least attributed to Messrs. Chrétien and Martin those accomplishments.
Not only does he claim credit without attribution, but he also announces in the Speech from the Throne that he is meeting the premiers. Last month when the Leader of the Opposition suggested such a thing, he was ridiculed for even suggesting it, that somehow the Leader of the Opposition was being panicky and was fearmongering. Now the Prime Minister thinks it is such a keen idea that he even put it in the Speech from the Throne. Possibly the Prime Minister was being just a touch economical with the truth when he neglected to mention that Canada in the first two quarters was actually running a deficit and that his government was already running a deficit during the election. His Minister of Finance, in an interview with Peter Mansbridge on CBC, said, “I am not going to be the minister of deficits”. In a direct response to Peter Mansbridge he said that he could not imagine any circumstance in which the Government of Canada would go into deficit.
When we read in the Speech from the Throne that it would be misguided to commit to a balanced budget in the short term at any cost, in Scarborough—Guildwood they call those weasel words.
This may have something to do with the great axiom of John Crosbie. John Crosbie was obviously not in our party but he had quite a number of great sayings, one of which was, “If I told you what I was going to do, you would never vote for me”. That is probably true of the Minister of Finance; if, during the election, he told people what he was going to do, they would never vote for him. The Minister of Finance is supposed to be on top of the nation's finances. His department tracks GDP, revenue and expenditures literally on a day by day basis. He either knew the government was facing a deficit, or he should have known the government was facing a deficit. Again, as the chief financial officer of the nation, either he is being economical with the truth or he is just plain incompetent.
The Prime Minister has nowhere to hide. The Parliamentary Budget Officer was quoted in the media as saying:
The weak fiscal performance to date is largely attributable to previous policy decisions as opposed to weakened economic conditions...
There is no hiding behind the G-20, no hiding behind the mess in the United States. It is due to the policies of the government. An article in the media states:
Page concluded Ottawa could run a deficit as high as $13.8 billion next year, in 2009-10. Deficits could remain higher than $11 billion each year through to 2013, adding nearly $50-billion to Canada's debt over the next five years.
Fifty billion dollars is a lot of money, even for Conservatives. Fifty billion dollars would be added to the national debt because of the incompetence and mismanagement of this nation’s finances, in spite of the advice of the Liberal Party of Canada.
The Speech from the Throne announces that the Conservatives now have religion and they are going to experiment with responsible fiscal management, after having run expenses for the past two and a half years at something in the order of 6% to 8% on an annualized basis for a total of $40 billion. Now they have religion and they are going to try responsible fiscal management.
The Prime Minister is going to be disciplined. Is that not a novel idea. I wonder by what standard he is going to be disciplined. Is he going to be disciplined by the standard of GDP growth? Is he going to be disciplined by the standard of inflation? Is he going to disciplined by the standard of people’s wages? Or is it that Canadians are getting disciplined because of the lack of self-discipline on the part of the Prime Minister?
Apparently, the Prime Minister is going to be fiscally disciplined without touching the major expenditures of the government. He is going to be fiscally disciplined without touching transfers. He is going to be fiscally disciplined without touching program expenses. Magically somehow the nation’s finances are going to right themselves without touching either program expenditures or transfers.
On page six of the throne speech, and I hope no one missed this, the Prime Minister has dragged out the favourite whipping boy, which is the civil service. He has announced a new war on the civil service, and somehow that is going to be the answer to his lack of fiscal discipline over the past two and a half years.
On the other hand, we could take the approach of the Minister of Finance, which is to sell off government assets at distressed prices. We in Ontario have seen this movie before. Prior to one election, Mr. Harris decided to sell off Highway 407, a very valuable asset of the people of Ontario and the GTA. The consequence was that he sold it for about 25% of its value. The new owners of Highway 407 flipped the property two or three years later and pocketed a tidy sum of money. The consequence of the consequence is that we have virtually institutionalized gridlock in the GTA. That is what the people of Canada have in store for themselves as the Conservative government flip-flops its way around trying to figure out what to do.
The Conservatives do not even have discipline on the revenue side. Against the advice of every economist in the nation, they have reduced their revenues to the point where the cupboard is bare. Well, who emptied the cupboard? According to Mr. Page, “The weak fiscal performance to date is largely attributable to previous policy decisions as opposed to weakened economic conditions, since nominal GDP is higher than expected in budget 2008”.
That means Canadians are working. They are working harder and harder, and the government is squandering their hard-earned money. Having exacerbated the difficulties we are facing due to economic turmoil, the Prime Minister gives Canadians the advice that these are great buying opportunities. He gave that advice on October 7. How much has the market melted down since then? By 13%, and when I looked at 2 o'clock today, it had dropped another 447 points. We should not take advice from the Prime Minister on running the nation’s finances. He could not even run a portfolio. Now he wants to share in the pain. He wants our ideas. This is after two and a half years of ridiculing the Leader of the Opposition. Now he wants our ideas.
Maybe we could start with a little less ridicule and a little more respect.