I am not allowed to name him, but he is a well known member in this House who is currently the Minister of Finance.
Many Canadians will no doubt be surprised to learn that it is the Prime Minister's Conservatives, and not the Liberals, who are the biggest spenders.
Since the Conservatives came to power two years ago, federal program spending by the Prime Minister's government has increased by 6.4% compared to only 2.3% during the 13 years of Liberal reign. If we exclude years when there was a deficit, and tabulate only the eight years between 1997 and 2005, we arrive at an increase in program spending of 5.5% per year under the Liberals.
As Andrew Coyne of the National Post said when speaking of the Minister of Finance—and Andrew Coyne is not a Liberal to the best of my knowledge:
He [the Minister of Finance] has become the biggest spending finance minister in the history of Canada. It is an unfortunate but deserved reputation because Canada's new government has grown by 14% after two [name of the minister of finance] budgets .
While the Conservatives have generally spent more, this has not prevented them from making some foolish cuts, such as those in sectors that help Canada's competitiveness—for example, funding for universities—in sectors facing serious difficulties—for example, the Liberal forestry program—and, even worse, those affecting vulnerable populations—for example, programs targeting women and literacy programs.
We in the Liberal Party do not think this is a good budget. Nor do we think it is an egregiously bad budget. Therefore, we do not propose to bring down the government on this budget and to cause an election at this time, which, in our view, Canadians would not see as justified by a big expenditure over such a little budget.
What I find most disturbing in the budget is the fact that the government inherited the largest surplus in Canadian history a short two years ago. Now, through reckless overspending and economic management, which could only be described as in the style of the New Democratic Party, it has found itself with a fiscal cupboard that is largely bare and only a relatively mild SARS crisis or modest U.S. recession away from once more taking our country into deficit.
We are not voting on that issue. We do not think the budget is worthy of an election. However, I can assure members that we in the Liberal Party will be closely monitoring the fiscal management carried out by the government during these uncertain economic times.
I therefore move, seconded by the member for Hull—Aylmer:
That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word “That” and by substituting the following therefor:
this House recognizes that this Budget contains some initiatives that attempt to mirror sound and intelligent Liberal policy proposals, but regrets that the government has made significant economic policy mistakes over the past two years and shown an NDP-like lack of fiscal prudence that prevent it from dealing with a downturn in the Canadian economy.