Brian Fitzpatrick

[Equalization Program, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Conference Board of Canada says by all objective standards Saskatchewan is anything but a have province. The Conference Board also says that the clawback of non-renewable resources is most unfair and detrimental to the interests of Saskatchewan.

Why will the finance minister not extend the Newfoundland and Labrador-Nova Scotia agreement and the principle of that agreement to other provinces like Saskatchewan?

[Saskatchewan, February 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, 12 years ago a rather famous Saskatchewan Liberal said, “Vote for me for a powerful voice at the cabinet table and much will be accomplished for our province”. Let us review his record.

His government implemented a useless $2 billion gun registry. His government gutted a good part of the Saskatchewan rural rail network and terminated the Crow rate. He has permitted his tax collectors to harass and attack amateur junior hockey in Saskatchewan. His farm programs have utterly failed farmers in Saskatchewan. To put the icing on the cake, he is contemptuous of Saskatchewan's legitimate demand for a fair deal on equalization.

The House has witnessed the introduction of the endangered species legislation. I would suggest that for Saskatchewan, Liberals should be included on that list as a species at risk.

[Equalization Program, February 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal equalization formula is grossly unfair toward Saskatchewan. For example, Manitoba has a population roughly equal to Saskatchewan and has a $1,500 higher per capita income.

What is Manitoba currently receiving under the equalization formula? It is receiving in excess of $1.4 billion. What is Saskatchewan's share? It is a paltry $77 million. That is insulting.

Why does the Minister of Finance refuse to give Saskatchewan the same equalization deal he recently gave to Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2, February 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I must comment. During the election campaign, I remember some of the Liberal advertising hammering away at certain individuals.

Then I read an article by an economist from McGill University. He had the data to show that eight provinces in this country in the 1990s were basically have not provinces. There was a net inflow of money to help support those provinces during the period of 1993 to 2001. Most of them had provincial Liberal governments or NDP governments and there was a separatist government in Quebec.

The economist had the data for the province of Alberta from 1993 to 2001. The increase of revenues to this town of Ottawa was gigantic during that period of time. There was a huge influx of revenue. Then, mysteriously, from 1995 to 2001, there was a great big jackpot that came from Ontario. Every year Ottawa got more and more, which helped to fund this town. He said that without Alberta's and Ontario's contributions during this period of time this government and this town would have been an absolute fiscal basket case.

He said that the former finance minister, the Prime Minister, should have two great big pictures on the wall in his office, one of Ralph Klein and one of Mike Harris, and he should get down on his hands and knees every day and give thanks for what these two premiers did for the fiscal situation in this country.

It is a disgrace. You people have done nothing to sort out the fiscal house in here. You have wasted and squandered--

[Natural Resources, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, through the Atlantic accord the federal government has effectively eliminated the equalization clawback on oil and gas revenues for the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. This move was long overdue.

Will the Minister of Finance inform the House of his timetable to eliminate equalization clawbacks on oil and gas for other provinces, including the province of Saskatchewan?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have to agree with my Bloc colleague's comment about the fiscal capacity. The programs, which governments deliver to the people, the ones that really count in my area, are things like education, health care and highways. Those are the bread and butter programs that are delivered to people. There are a whole host of areas such as social services, environmental protection and game management.

When people think of government, they generally think of their provincial governments but these are very expensive programs to deliver. In a province like Saskatchewan we do not have the fiscal ability to really deal with these matters, which is why we have the longest wait list for health care in the country. It is disgraceful and, in my view, it is almost a violation of the Canada Health Act.

We do not have the fiscal capacity but Ottawa has lots of money. The government had $4 billion to spend on a Kyoto study but does not even have a plan for implementing it. It blew billions of dollars in the HRDC boondoggle. It has squandered goodness knows how many billions of dollars on the gun registry. It almost boils down to corruption. The sponsorship program would be one that comes to mind.

We have all this money in Ottawa and it is being squandered and wasted on low priority items while the provinces have to struggle with real problems and real demands from the Canadian public. I totally agree with the member.

I also want to portend an argument for my friends from Quebec. I know right now Quebec does not have a lot of these non-renewable resources but I know the province has a lot of potential. A lot of mining activity is going on in the province that is looking very promising, such as diamond mining. In the Gaspé area, a lot of people in the oil and gas industry are talking about the potential of that province having a great deal of oil and gas in the future.

It is not just something for the present for provinces like Saskatchewan that have resources in this area. It could very easily be that Quebec could be sitting on a whole lot of very valuable non-renewable resources and it will be its turn to be punished under this formula as well. It is something that every province in the country should be thinking about. It is bad policy and it definitely creates a huge fiscal imbalance. I agree with my Bloc member 100% on this issue.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this is a timely topic. Before I get to my speech, I want to give some kudos to the premier of Newfoundland, Danny Williams, and the premier of Nova Scotia, who have put up a good fight on an issue of principle.

Being from Saskatchewan I was very disappointed when listening to the Minister of Finance's comments and reaction to questions today that he is not going to extend this principle to all provinces right across the country. If we are going to fragment our country into pieces, and that is the way we are going to carry out equalization programs, we are heading for trouble. That is not the way to do it.

That is not the first time the minister has let the province of Saskatchewan down. He has let us down on farm programs. They are an absolute failure in the province. On the junior hockey issue, I heard the Minister of National Revenue today say that he is for fairness and for treating all Canadians equally. Well, tell that to the 10 or 11 junior A hockey teams in Saskatchewan that have been shafted by the Liberal government. The minister has not been a good news story for Saskatchewan.

The Minister of Finance said that Saskatchewan is a have province. I do not know what kind of wonderland paradise the minister of words lives in because I have a lot of problems with that categorization. The equalization plan as it is presently set out is full of major defects. It is a very poor instrument with which to measure true fiscal capacity. That is the very issue about which Newfoundland and Nova Scotia were fighting.

Academics have been extremely critical of the formula. They have been very critical of a formula that emphasizes in 13 out of 33 tax bases non-renewable natural resources. In Saskatchewan with uranium, potash, oil and gas, that is a good part of the province's tax base or revenue. The academics are from all regions of the country and their condemnation of that formula as being very defective has been almost universal.

The Minister of Finance must realize it himself. He is setting up a panel to study the issue and come up with some recommendations on it. I am amazed that he would not understand that problem, but he does not.

I want to make some points about Saskatchewan's fiscal capacity and the categorization by the Minister of Finance that Saskatchewan somehow is a have province. The best indicator of fiscal capacity is per capita income. Statistics Canada records show that the average per capita income in Canada, rounded off, is about $30,000. What is it in Saskatchewan? It is $25,000, which is $5,000 below the national average. The Minister of Finance says that Saskatchewan is a have province.

Manitoba, our sister province right next to us, has a million people, give or take a few thousand. It has about the same population as Saskatchewan. Under the current equalization formula Manitoba in the current year is to receive $1.433 billion in equalization. Saskatchewan will receive $71 million. The amazing thing about that, if we look at Statistics Canada statistics, is that Manitoba's per capita income is $1,500 higher than Saskatchewan's, but the Minister of Finance says that Saskatchewan is a have province.

This is a huge deficiency between two provinces that are quite comparable. We are talking about a difference in financing in the neighbourhood of $1.3 billion. I am not begrudging Manitoba; I am just saying the formula has to work for all provinces in the country and it is not.

Let us look at a few other indicators. The Fraser Institute just completed a study on health care and waiting lists. The average wait time in Saskatchewan from the time a person sees a general practitioner until seeing a specialist and to get a first treatment is 30 weeks. That is almost eight months. If a person's car broke down and the garage mechanic said to bring it back in eight months, the person would be very dissatisfied.

Manitoba's average wait time is 15 weeks, half the wait period that in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan has the longest wait list for MRIs in the country, 25 weeks. Manitoba is 11 weeks, and there are other provinces in Canada where the wait list is as low as 5 weeks. We are the highest in these matters. That is another indicator. We are dead last when it comes to wait lists for health care, and it does not stop there.

Every time we have a farm safety net program in Saskatchewan, the provincial government pleads poverty. It says that it does not have the fiscal ability or capacity to pay its 40%. It goes on every year. It comes up with a whole lot of explanations why it cannot do it, but it basically boils down to the fact that it does not have the money to pay for those programs. I can see why. Look at the equalization plan.

This is another thing about which we should be concerned. Saskatchewan is very similar to Newfoundland and Labrador in other categories too. If we look at the net out-migration of people from provinces, Saskatchewan is second in the country for people leaving the province. Only Newfoundland and Labrador is higher, although I read a report which said that out of 22 year old people in Saskatchewan, we were the leader in the country. That just happens to be the year that most students graduate from the University of Regina and Saskatoon. Most of them, and I do not think I am saying anything out of turn here, move to provinces like Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario or cities like Calgary. In their minds, the province does not offer them opportunity in the future, not unlike Newfoundland and Labrador.

In many respects I reiterate what I said before. The Minister of Finance is letting the people of Saskatchewan down in a serious way. He knows better. He knows that the equalization formula has to be a national formula. It is in the Constitution. However, the intent of that is to provide all provinces with the fiscal ability to provide essential public services to the population. The records show that in health care, in agriculture programs, in highways and a whole lot of areas, the situation in Saskatchewan is deteriorating. It all boils down to a province that does not have the fiscal ability to meet those challenges.

Many people in Saskatchewan are viewing Danny Williams as their champion and their premier on this issue. They see the importance of this issue. I must confess that when I heard the announcement as a Saskatchewan person, I thought that was good news and that we would get that kind of treatment in Saskatchewan as well.

However, all I get is a bunch of bafflegab from the Minister of Finance. He comes up with all sorts of arguments. If I heard him today, he said that we were getting $600 million on this and $140 million on that. I have read the Department of Finance releases on documents on this matter. In this current year, we are getting $77 million. That is the Department of Finance figure. Manitoba is getting $1,433,000,000 this year. On a per capita level, that is $77 per person in Saskatchewan and in our sister province, Manitoba, which is basically I think in the same fiscal boat as Saskatchewan, it is $1,433 per person. When we look at it on a family basis, it is something like $6,000 in Manitoba and $280 in Saskatchewan.

No wonder the wait lists in Saskatchewan are the highest in the country. No wonder the highways are falling apart. No wonder the agriculture sector is in a disastrous state of affairs. Quite honestly, we have been using creative financing in Saskatchewan. I am quite sure if truth were known, we have run up huge fiscal deficits in the province over the last two or three years. We are running out of money. The province has a $12 billion accumulated debt, not unlike the problems that Newfoundland and Labrador has.

I would think the Minister of Finance would understand the strongest argument for removing the clawback on the development of non-renewable resources. Why would he not want Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan to be like Alberta, which has developed a very strong economy around its non-renewable resources? In every other fiscal measurement, personal income, property taxes, corporate tax capacity, growth in the economy, employment and all the other indicators of fiscal capacity, it has built its economy around that. It has a very prosperous economy and is a have province. It is not dependent on the federal government for anything. It is a net contributor to Confederation.

Why would we not want to set in place a formula that encourages Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador and other provinces to follow that same path, to become prosperous, self-reliant contributors to the Canadian mainstream, and to become a destination point for investment, people, jobs and all the other things? Because the Liberal equalization policy says that this is dangerous. The government wants to keep them under its thumb. It wants to keep them dependent on it. It wants to punish them for trying to create jobs and having people become self-reliant and independent people in the country. It is a dangerous concept.

The Liberals believe in this big Ottawa bureaucracy where they like to keep people under their thumbs. I guess for political reasons too they like to use their fear tactics to try to scare people into becoming more dependent on their programs and approach to things.

I am profoundly disappointed with the Minister of Finance. I would have thought, given his background and his knowledge and given he was born and raised in Avonlea, Saskatchewan, he would have a real appreciation of the problems Saskatchewan faces and the problems of the equalization formula. I would have thought he would be the champion of this issue. He is in a position, as Minister of Finance, along with the people who make the rules on this thing, to take the bull by the horns, to use a Saskatchewan phrase, and get this problem fixed. However, he is not doing that.

The Minister of Finance has given us the same answers he has given us on the junior hockey issue. We have 10 junior A hockey teams that have been punished by the revenue department, which has imposed taxes on those teams, but not on 120 other teams across the country. He has done nothing to rectify that problem. Ten communities have appealed to him to address the issue. I hope he will do it in this budget, but I am not optimistic. We have a private member's bill on this, but he has given no indication he will support that. I am not enthusiastic about his approach to nation-building.

I would like to make another comment on the whole topic. We talk about building a strong, unified Canada from coast to coast. The equalization concept is a part of our Constitution. It was intended to be national in scope and to treat Canadians fairly from one end of the country to another. What the Minister of Finance has done with his concept is chop it up. He has an equalization formula that is unique for one area and an equalization formula that is unique for another area. Nobody can really look at any basic principles across the country and say that this is the formula, that it is fair and a true measure of fiscal capacity and that it is fair for everyone. These are the sorts of things people look for from the Liberal government.

Another point is, why during the heat of an election, would a prime minister go into the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and make a firm commitment to the premier, acknowledging that the clawback on non-renewable resources, on oil and gas is wrong, that if he becomes prime minister, he will totally eliminate the clawback? He made that firm commitment, but then the premier had to fight and use everything in his tool chest to try to get the Liberal government to live up to the commitment. It is a disgraceful way to run a country. The only reason the government has accommodated Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia on this is because the bulldog tenacity of Danny Williams forced it to live up to its promise, and I commend him for doing that.

When the Prime Minister made that promise in Newfoundland and Labrador during the election, he not only made that commitment to the province but, as Prime Minister of Canada, he made that commitment to every province. If he is going to change the rules about equalization, he is changing them for all the provinces, not just one.

I am thorough disappointed that the government has apparently decided to change the formula for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, but yet tells a province like Saskatchewan that the changes made in the formula will not apply to the province. That is a very disappointing approach to fiscal federalism in the way the government deals with things.

I want to point out the disparity also between different provinces. I like to use Manitoba because Manitoba and Saskatchewan are quite similar. I know both provinces. I do not want in any way to construe this as being a negative against Manitoba. It has its own challenges as well.

Going back over the last 10 or 11 years and looking at the Liberal equalization formula and how the government has dealt with those two provinces, the average discrepancy in equalization payments between Manitoba and Saskatchewan is $800 million a year. That amount over a 10 year period works out to something like $9.6 billion. That is a difference between two provinces that are relatively the same in fiscal capacity. Saskatchewan has a $12 billion deficit. When compound interest and everything else is factored in, it could have virtually eliminated its public debt if the equalization formula had been a fair formula and the clawback on non-renewable resources had been there.

To show how crazy this formula is, I will point out some calculations under the equalization formula. For every $1 of revenue that Saskatchewan received from oil and gas, the federal government clawed back $1.50 under equalization. If the political masters in Saskatchewan look at the merits of equalization, they will ask why should the province develop its natural resources? Why should the province create jobs in that sector and try to build its economy when the federal government clubs it over the head on equalization? It is a losing proposition for a province to try to develop its natural resources.

Saskatchewan has other non-renewable resources on which an economy can be built. Saskatchewan has probably half of the world's uranium. I actually do believe that uranium has a major place in this energy starved world, a world dominated by air and water pollution. Atomic power will be part of the equation, whether the chattering class agrees with me or not. Saskatchewan has the world's largest deposits of potash.

Another thing I disagree with on targeting non-renewable resources is the fact that they are non-renewable. They will run out some day. If the provinces that have non-renewable resources do not build the right kind of economic climate and foundations, then they are in trouble when those resources run out, whether that province is Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta or Saskatchewan.

Anybody in government who decides that we should target non-renewable resources as the foundation for our equalization formula should put on their thinking cap. It is a bad approach. There are a whole lot of people who are a lot smarter than me who have looked at this topic and they condemn a formula that emphasizes non-renewable resources to the extent of this current formula.

I guess the folks back in Saskatchewan will be very disappointed with a Minister of Finance who says that this new accord with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia will not apply to them or to any of the other provinces in Canada.

The farmers in my area are desperately looking to federal and provincial governments for some increased fiscal capacity to address their challenges. They are up against the wall. This will not be good news for anybody in Saskatchewan. I am supremely disappointed with the minister's words and his approach to this whole matter.

[Telefilm Canada Act, December 13th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I have two comments.

The first is on the CBC. A great Canadian cultural institution in this country is curling. Northern Ontario has a rich curling history. Al Hackner was the Canadian curling champion from northern Ontario.

This year, CBC squeezed out a quality private broadcaster, TSN. This curling season we are not going to get any evening draws from the Brier because the CBC does not want to do that. It is carrying American programming in the evening and that is more lucrative. We are not going to get those draws at night. It has a billion dollar subsidy that TSN does not have, so naturally it is going to win those contests. Canadian culture is the loser on that.

On the member's point about selling rural Canada, places like Saskatchewan and northern Ontario, in my riding Brent Butt is from Tisdale, a small community in Saskatchewan. A high quality weekly comedy series called Corner Gas is being done on a private broadcaster. Americans are interested in that program. I understand it might be carried in the U.S. as well. This does not have anything to do with government. It is the private system delivering high quality programming to people. It can do the job if government in some areas would get out of the way.

[Telefilm Canada Act, December 13th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his speech. I understand where he is coming from. He wants to stimulate and encourage the development of Canadian culture both at home and abroad and that is a very laudable goal.

I do want to point out a model that does exist in the world. I think it is showing very promising results. It is a creation of that famous socialist, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Great Britain. In his wisdom, he decided to lift ownership requirements on the media delivery system in Great Britain, to free that up and allow foreign investors and broadcasters to enter the British market and compete with the British broadcasters. In exchange for that change in policy, he had basically one requirement. It was that a certain percentage of the broadcasting that would be produced in Great Britain would be British made.

Since that policy has been initiated in Great Britain, British culture has flourished, not only in Great Britain but worldwide. I saw on the People's Network last fall an outstanding series on Churchill in the 1930s. It was a very high class production. Guess who produced that program? Lo and behold, it was HBO. The production was done with British actors, British directors and British producers. The program was being marketed around the world.

Mr. Murdoch, who I am sure is a villain for the NDP, has also flourished in that environment and has produced tons of high quality British broadcasting. I am only throwing this out because I am curious about what the reaction of the NDP would be to this policy of this famous socialist Prime Minister Tony Blair.

[Prince Albert Centennial, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the City of Prince Albert on its 100th anniversary as a city.

Prince Albert started as a settlement along the banks of the Saskatchewan River in the 1860s and soon emerged as a major centre for trade and development in the Northwest Territories. Upon Saskatchewan's entry into the Canadian federation, the thriving community of Prince Albert was incorporated as a city.

Prince Albert has a rich history. It has been home to three prime ministers: Wilfrid Laurier, Mackenzie King and John Diefenbaker. It has been a major factory for outstanding hockey players and coaches throughout Canada and North America. It was a pioneer in developing the model for our modern health care system.

I know that all members will want to join with me in offering the residents of Prince Albert our best wishes on their city's 100th birthday celebration.