Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour and a pleasure for me to rise in the House today as the newly elected member of Parliament for Egmont to speak to Bill C-15.
Before I get to my comments on the budget, I want to acknowledge the situation that is occurring in our sister province of Alberta, primarily the community of Fort McMurray. After all, the oil industry of Alberta and Saskatchewan is the single biggest employer in my riding. We depend on this part of Canada for a lot of the jobs that are created there.
I want to acknowledge as well that islanders will be there to support the community of Fort McMurray in its time of need. We are a generous society; Canadians in general are generous, and we all reach out to those in Fort McMurray.
For the last number of weeks, since the budget was introduced, I have listened intently to the debate in the House and to questions in question period. I have listened to opposition members rail on at length with their comments on the government's deficit budget. Listening to their newfound concerns and their degree of anxiety over the deficit budget, I chose to take a look at the fiscal track record of former governments over the past number of years.
It is interesting to look back at the fiscal situation over a number of years in this country. In particular, I looked back to 1994-95, which was the first year of a new Liberal administration, following nine years of a Conservative government in this country. In 1994-95, the debt-to-GDP ratio was near 70%, after nine years of Conservative rule. By 2006, at the end of roughly 12 years of a Liberal administration, the debt-to-GDP ratio had been reduced to below 30%. Shortly after, the debt-to-GDP ratio under a new Conservative government began to climb, and climbed to over 30%, the number where it is today. When I compared the fiscal situation that was inherited by a Liberal government in 1993-94 and the fiscal track record of the previous Conservative government, we can see how the debt-to-GDP ratio ballooned under that particular government.
I wanted to look more specifically at the past years of the former Conservative government, now the opposition. In 2006-07, the government inherited a surplus of $13.8 billion, adjusted to $16.2 billion. In 2007-08, the surplus was at $9.6 billion, but by 2008-09, the Conservative government began to run a deficit of $5.8 billion in 2008-09. In 2009-10, it was $55.6 billion, adjusted to $61.27 billion. In 2010-11, it was $33 billion, adjusted to $36 billion. In 2011-12, it was $26 billion to $27 billion. In 2012-13, it was $18 billion. In 2013-14, it was $5 billion.
Obviously, the comments now coming from the opposition party, which was the government at the time, clearly show that the government they were a part of had no problem running deficits in this country, in fact sizeable deficits. I am told, but I could be corrected, that the deficit accumulated over that period of time was one of the largest this country incurred in any particular period.
Where are we today? Our party was honest and frank with Canadians during the election. We indicated that given the deteriorating fiscal situation, it was unlikely that in government we would be able to run a surplus. We indicated that given the fiscal situation at the time and the information our party had, we would anticipate a deficit in the $10-billion range in order to implement the programs that we wanted to implement.
My colleague the member of Parliament for Cumberland—Colchester gave me some good research material which indicates that with the drop in the price of oil per barrel, the federal treasury has lost in the vicinity of $18 billion since late last summer until now.
As a government we could have done a number of things. We could have reined in spending to do away with that deficit, but that would have forced us to abandon a number of the programs that we campaigned on, that we believed in, and that we felt this country needed.
I firmly believe that the government's fundamental role is to address the needs of the most vulnerable. For too many years this area has been neglected and significant effort will need to be made to address these matters. Over the last 30 years, Canadians at the top 0.1% have seen their income rise by about 155% and some 90% of Canadians have seen their income rise by only 33% over the same time frame. Clearly something had to change.
The platform that I was most proud to run on as a candidate in the last election and a key part of the budget that I am proud to support and defend is our position on the child benefit. The child benefit is simpler, fairer, tax-free, and targeted to those who need it the most, low-income and middle-income families. It is also much more generous than the former program. I can relate to one family in my riding that would benefit significantly by this program. There are 5,111 children enrolled in the school system in Egmont. The average family will benefit by $2,300. There are 4,150 families in my riding of Egmont. This adds up to $9.545 million for my constituency alone, which is a small constituency.
What had an impact on me the most during the election campaign was the financial distress that single seniors were feeling. As a candidate, that really had an impact on me. I was surprised at the extent of the financial hardship faced by single seniors, the majority of whom are women.
Our commitment to not only increase the GIS by 10% but to restore the age of eligibility to 65 is a significant component of our budget. I want to quote a fact. According to researchers at Laval University, the Conservative plan would have increased the number of 65-year-olds and 66-year-olds living below the poverty line from 6% to 17%. We in the Liberal Party felt that was unacceptable. We feel that we owe this segment of our population a reasonable living.
I am proud of these two significant changes that would be brought about by the passage of the budget. When the budget is implemented, people will see the benefits.
I want to close on another area where we have seen significant reform. At the same time, I will be a bit critical of my own government. This has to do the changes we have made to the employment insurance system. As a government, we should always target changes to address the most vulnerable in society. On this measure, we did not meet the needs of the short-term seasonal workers in my riding by extending their benefit period. We did it for some parts of the country, which I applaud. We made a lot of significant improvements to the system. However, on this one area, I feel we have a lot more work to do. I look forward to continuing the work on those issues in the coming sessions of Parliament and budgets.