Monte Solberg

[Job Training, February 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Canadian people will appreciate that answer.

By the time the review of social programs is complete the government will have spent over $1.5 billion on what, according to the minister's department, is useless training. So as not to waste the time of the unemployed or taxpayers' money, will the minister tell us what steps he is taking to ensure this problem is addressed immediately?

[Job Training, February 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, recently on the TV program "Venture" it was revealed that the type of training unemployed Canadians are getting through human resources development not only does not help but may actually hurt their chances of getting a job.

My question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Will the minister table the human resources development document that was quoted in the "Venture" program and call for an immediate free debate on the future of job training in Canada?

[Social Security System, February 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises some important points. I would point out to him that it was not the people involved in making the decisions who led us to the point where we have a half trillion dollar debt today. They did not have direct input into designing the programs that led us to that half trillion dollar debt. Edmund Burke had some wise things to say, but he did not have the opportunity to go through 300 or 400 years of democracy to see where it would lead.

The member is making his comments, not in the context of the current situation, not in the context of the fact that we have a huge debt and deficit, not in the context of the fact that people

are cynical about politics and politicians, not in the context of the fact that we have huge divisions in the country because people do not feel they are being consulted.

If someone is simplistic in the House, it is not the people in the Reform Party who believe people have to be given a voice. It is people who believe they have all the answers. I encourage the hon. member to take a look around the country today and acknowledge we have to listen much more carefully to people than we have over the last 20 years.

[Social Security System, February 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the government has embarked on the first step in democratizing Parliament by allowing free debates such as this one on the future of Canada's social programs. For that it really should be commended. I hope it will soon finish the job by allowing free votes on these issues we are debating.

So as to keep our heads on straight during this emotionally charged debate I think there are a few questions we should be asking ourselves as we begin the much needed overhaul of Canada's social programs. In fact I believe these are questions we should always ask ourselves in our role as parliamentarians.

The first question we need to ask is: Does the federal government need to be involved at all in resolving this problem? Can it be more effectively dealt with by other levels of government, by business or through private sector organizations or even charities?

In response to that question there is no doubt in my mind that a completely overhauled unemployment insurance program could be run by employers and employees themselves. This of course is what many have been asking for. In essence this was the recommendation of the highly respected findings of the Forget commission in 1986.

With respect to health care and welfare it is important that we recognize that the provinces are in charge of the administration of these crucial programs. We should let them continue to lead the way in progressive and meaningful reform. Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Alberta are all bringing forward exciting new approaches to income support and supplementation. Alberta is also proposing bold new initiatives in health care. Out of these varied approaches will come a synthesis, an idea, a program that combines the best of all.

In both areas however the provinces are limited in the scope of the reform by the strictures of federal legislation. I encourage the federal government to put everything on the table in its initiative to bring change to health care and social programs.

The second question we should be asking is: Will this decision lead to a long-term solution, or is it a short-term band-aid fix that helps in the short run but creates problems of its own in the long run.

I would argue that the changes made to unemployment insurance over the last 23 years have not only led to ever rising premiums and a bankrupt program, more important it has led to dependency on government, a problem whose economic and human costs are incalculable. For the sake of Canadians let us ensure we have the courage to design social programs and health care reform that promote personal responsibility and initiative.

The third question we have to ask is: Are all the stakeholders involved in making these decisions or is it the top down, my way or the highway approach?

How many task force reports and royal commission reports now serve as chair props and doorstops because governments were not committed to following through on the recommendations that flowed from the people of the country? How many times have governments committed to a process of consultation only to ignore the comments they do not like?

The government should listen extra hard to the people who fund the health care system to find out what services they are willing to pay for. The government should listen especially hard to the people who fund unemployment insurance to find out where it needs changing. The government should strain to hear from the people who fund social assistance to see how that program can be improved.

The fourth question we need to ask is: Will this decision make government more user friendly and more accessible, or will it increase paperwork and layers of bureaucracy?

Canada's social programs today are a nightmare. They are designed by bureaucrats for bureaucrats and woe is the user who dares to verse his social program without his trusty bureaucrat at his side. The design needs to come from the people who use the programs. To do otherwise is to dehumanize further and make even more wasteful an institution, and I speak here of government, that is already characterized by gross inefficiency.

The fifth question we have to ask is: Does this proposal have clear measurable objectives, or are its goals vaguely stated and therefore unmeasurable?

I desperately hope that the government will bring forward a clear set of objectives when it tables its new legislation this fall. Putting people back to work or restoring their dignity sounds very nice, but unless we can clearly define our goals in measurable terms and then monitor our progress in striving to achieve them we may as well not even begin the process of reform.

Clear goals will force us to determine beforehand whether or not they are reasonable goals, whether or not they can even be attained. Clear goals will give guidance to the means by which we will achieve those goals. Clear goals will force us to set budgets that will be sufficient to sustain these new programs in boom and in bust periods. Without these goals we will be blindly spending wheelbarrows full of money in the vain hope that somehow this will improve things.

The sixth question we have to ask is: Has it been explained to the public that if this decision leads to more government spending then spending will have to be cut in other possibly more essential areas or that taxes will have to be raised?

The government has a responsibility to communicate what is going on in government. As servants of the people we are duty bound to ask them where their priorities lie, which social programs are the most important to them, second most important, and so on. As the debt passes a half trillion dollars it must be apparent by now that our resources must be carefully rationed. I hope the government will fulfil its responsibility and address this issue.

The seventh question I ask is: Is this decision being made with complete awareness of the current economic, political, cultural, historical and social situation and environment both within the country and outside the country, or does it ignore current trends and important facts?

While I touched on the economic situation, we must also be aware of other factors that determine our environment. For instance in the fast-paced world of free trade we have to decide if it is even possible for government to predict successfully where the jobs of the future will be. Can we determine if technology will allow us to do more with less in the field of health care? These are questions that can only be answered by carefully investigating the delicate interplay of the many forces that shape our country.

The government is embarking on an ambitious plan. Canadians from coast to coast recognize that our social programs and health care are in desperate need of deep, profound change. Not so obvious, however, is the subtle link between strong social programs, a strong economy and the right of Canadians, not politicians, not special interest groups, to guide this modern day reformation movement.

Well intentioned politicians find it easy to spend other people's money. Their good intentions are infinite but sadly the money is not. Well intentioned special interest groups want to help but have a powerful economic incentive to maintain the status quo. Only real taxpayers, people who grind it out every day to make a dollar, can make those tough decisions about how their money should be spent. We should trust them to tell us what is wrong with the social programs, what is wrong with health care, which programs are most important to them, and how they should be distributed and paid for.

I will conclude with these two lines that I believe sum up what I have been attempting to say this morning. If we fake it, if we only hear some people, if we only push our agenda, we cannot succeed; but if we listen hard, if we communicate, if we take our guidance from real taxpaying Canadians, we absolutely cannot fail.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I give my sincere thanks to the government for permitting this precedent setting debate.

During this pre-budget debate I rise to offer an analysis of the government's infrastructure program that will add $2 billion to federal government spending. During the election campaign and in the throne speech the Liberal rationale for the infrastructure program was twofold. First, this jointly funded program would create jobs. Second, it would encourage public investment in our roads, sewers and public buildings, all of which would increase the nation's productivity and therefore our competitiveness.

Together these measures are supposed to jump start our economy. I would argue however that this rationale is deeply flawed. I would argue that this program is not only premised on faulty assumptions. I would also argue that its design is coercive, inefficient and unfair in nature.

Let us look at the assumption that this program will create 50,000 to 60,000 new jobs. As the government has already admitted it has not taken into account how many jobs will be lost by raising taxes to pay for this $6 billion program.

This program betrays the government's belief that it will use that $6 billion more efficiently than taxpayers, than investors would use it, despite the mountains of evidence indicating that it just is not so.

I can guarantee the House that the owner of a small business would not charter a jet to fly to Boston and New Orleans for $172,000 if he could get a commercial flight for $5,000. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has demonstrated in an exaggerated fashion what happens on a smaller scale a thousand times a day in government.

Instead of taking that $6 billion out of the hides of taxpayers, I urge the government to leave that money where it is. The small business owners, taxpayers and investors will spend that money a lot more efficiently and effectively than government ever would.

Another assumption the government makes is that we are somehow lax in funding infrastructure in the country. This is despite the fact that public infrastructure spending increased 40 per cent between 1986 and 1993 to $17.5 billion.

Meanwhile private infrastructure investment last year was in the tens of billions of dollars. This was an investment that businesses were counting on to pay some immediate dividends, or else they would not have spent the money at that time.

However the same cannot be said of the infrastructure works program. It will only fund new projects that until now municipal governments were not planning, presumably because they were not the best use of taxpayers' money, or in the case of repairs and upgrading because the roads or sewers still had a few more years in them. Perhaps it was because new taxes would have to be raised to fund them which would enrage taxpayers who are already overtaxed.

We should have deferred to the good judgment of the municipalities. Instead the government's infrastructure works program coerces the provinces and municipalities into joining the program and requesting funds for projects that may or may not need doing. After all, if a municipality does not participate then the federal tax dollars that come out of that jurisdiction would just fund the next municipality over. Thus local municipalities are pressured into participating.

When the federal government tells the other levels of government that the only way for them to get a dollar is to spend a dollar, we have a taxpayer's worst nightmare. Sadly this is not the only design flaw with this program. Although this program is supposed to create 50,000 to 60,000 jobs the government does not, to my knowledge, have any way of monitoring how many jobs will be created or whether these jobs will teach new skills or will lead to permanent employment.

As the government knows, the Auditor General has been very critical of past government programs that spend millions and millions of dollars but never check to see if those programs are actually accomplishing their objectives. I hope some day the government can enunciate its plan for monitoring the progress and income of its infrastructure works program.

I am also concerned that this project will perpetuate the problem of dependency on government, a problem that has become the hallmark of Canada's social programs. On one hand, the government is saying that it wants unemployed Canadians to get their skills upgraded so that their long term job prospects will be improved. On the other hand, it is enticing them to go to work for two years on a dead end job creation project, a project that in all likelihood will leave them unemployed in two years with no new skills to show for it.

I am also concerned that the control over this program is so loose that we see projects like the Quebec City Convention Centre getting the go-ahead before any criteria are even established. Again it causes me to question the government's implicit contention that the minister for infrastructure knows better than taxpayers how their money should be spent.

The government's infrastructure works program will kill more jobs than it creates. It coerces other levels of government into participating and encourages unnecessary infrastructure investment. It lacks clear measurable objectives. It is susceptible to political pork barrelling. It provides a disincentive for unemployed Canadians to seek training and long term employment. It drives up taxes and impedes our ability to tackle the root cause of unemployment and slow economic growth. I refer of course to the deficit and the debt.

I quote now from the Investment Dealers' Association 1994 pre-budget submission:

The Keynesian agenda is no longer a viable option. Indeed, even if one abstracts from the deficit and debt problem, it is difficult to reconcile increased government spending with a rebound in economic growth. Government expenditures have already reached unprecedented levels, with spending accounting for about 40 percent GDP, and yet economic activity remains in the doldrums. In this regard the proposed $6 billion infrastructure program, while boosting overall productivity, would have a minimal effect on stimulating growth.

Government expenditures must be viewed within the context of government finances which have run amok. The stimulative Keynesian impact of higher spending is overwhelmed by commensurately higher taxes to blunt a deterioration in finances, or higher interest rates in response to larger budget deficits. Never before has fiscal policy turned completely on its head to the extent that policy initiatives must be considered in terms of their impact on government finances to the exclusion of everything else.

The other day the finance minister offered to give the leader of the Reform Party a lesson in economics. On behalf of our leader I will gratefully decline. Instead we will take our guidance from a small business owner who attended the finance minister's pre-budget consultation conference in Calgary on Saturday. Vicki Dutton told the minister and the conference you cannot tax a country back to health.

I would argue that simple truth is worth all of the finance minister's elaborate theories ten times over.

We should abandon the infrastucture works program immediately and begin the overdue process of cutting government spending.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the member concerns her comments on RRSP limitations. She spoke in favour of reducing limits for Canadians with above average incomes.

Does it also follow that the member believes retired Canadians who have above average incomes should not receive old age security benefits? If not, why not?

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member for his speech. I certainly agree with him that we need to take a close look at reforming the taxation system. I also commend the member for Broadview-Greenwood for his work on the single tax. I think it is a great way to go.

I also agree that we have to take a look at reforming unemployment insurance. There are many disincentives to work in the program as it is presently constituted.

My question for the hon. member has to do with infrastructure. He mentioned that he was supportive of the government's infrastructure program. Does he think that the $6 billion that will come from taxpayers for the infrastructure program is going to be more wisely spent by the government than it would be by taxpayers, investors and small businessmen?

[Unemployment Insurance, January 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. As the minister knows payroll taxes actually cripple the ability of business to create jobs.

Could the minister tell the House which labour and business groups were consulted about the 1 per cent training tax that both the Prime Minister and the human resources development minister have said is under consideration by this government?

[Unemployment Insurance, January 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, businesses and employees are fed up with never ending hikes in UI premiums. My question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

Will the minister agree to turn over control of the UI program to the businesses and employees who fund it?

[Cruise Missile Testing, January 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Vladimir Zhirinovsky has already threatened the west with nuclear annihilation if we try to interfere with his attempt to re-establish the Russian empire.

Does the member really think he would not follow through with plans to re-arm the former Soviet Union should we quit testing the cruise missile in northern Alberta and northern Canada?