Mr. Speaker, I wish to say a few words about the budget implementation bill. Like my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois, I wish to indicate that the NDP will also be opposing the bill at second reading because it speaks to the general economic direction and position of the Government of Canada. The bill tells us what the government and House of Commons priorities should be in terms of the direction of our economy for the next three to five years.
The Minister of Finance believes that the most important priority is to have a massive tax cut of around $100 billion over the next four years. That is not in sync with what Canadians are saying.
Based on public opinion polls and from speaking with people on the street the most important priority is not a tax cut primarily directed at the wealthy, unless they are members of the Canadian Alliance. That is their big priority.
The Alliance has convinced the government that the number one priority is to cut taxes massively. That is being applauded enthusiastically by one member of the Canadian Alliance from Manitoba. What I am saying must therefore be accurate. However, the Canadian Alliance priority, and now the government's priority, is not in sync with what Canadians want.
We have seen in all the polls where approximately 7% or 8% of the people say that the most important priority is to cut taxes.
People want to invest in people. They want to invest in health care, in education and in the environment. They want to invest in our farmers who are in the biggest crisis since the 1930s. Those are their priorities and those are the areas they want us to spend the important part of the money.
In terms of tax cuts, Canadians want a more progressive and fair tax system. They do not want the flat tax system that has been advocated by the Canadian Alliance. The minister himself is going in the direction of having a flat tax. He is doing this by changing the taxation regime in terms of capital gains.
Until recently, 75% of capital gains was included in taxable income. If someone made $10,000, $100,000 or $1 million on the stock market or anywhere else, 75% of that was included in the taxable income and taxed at the marginal tax rate. Now the minister would reduce that to two-thirds of capital gains, instead of 75%.
If that was not good enough, in the mini statement last fall he reduced it from two-thirds to 50% of capital gains. If someone happens to be a very wealthy dishwasher in a restaurant and happens to make $1 million in capital gains, only half of that would be included. That is what the minister thinks.
There are very few ordinary people who would be able take advantage of this tax change. It would help the wealthy. They would get the biggest bang for their buck in terms of having their taxes reduced, and reduced drastically. The major measure in the bill would be a tax cut for the wealthy, for people who make a lot of money in capital gains, for the bankers, for the large corporations and for the privileged. This is happening under a Liberal government.
Mr. Speaker, I know you have been a member for a while and you would probably agree with me that what we have across the way is probably the most conservative Liberal government in the history of the country. It is much more conservative than the governments of Pierre Trudeau, Lester Pearson or Liberal governments that went before. It is more conservative because of the agenda of the Reform Party and the Alliance that are driving it to the right. That is what is happening and that is why the issue has to be debated.
I agree with the hon. member who spoke before me, that the priorities of the government are wrong. Canadians do not want to spend almost all the fiscal resources that we have, two-thirds or three-quarters, maybe 80% or 90%, depending on how strong the economy is with the recession or near recession we are entering into, in terms of a massive tax cut. The want the money to be spent on health care.
If we go back to 1995, the government across the way, again on the advice of the Reform Party, massively cut expenditures to health in terms of transfers to the provinces. Canadians want those transfers to the provinces increased. They want the best first class health care system anywhere in the world to be restored.
I turn to another big issue that the government is ignoring because of the tremendous priority placed on massive tax cuts, and that is aid to the farmers. A little while ago the government announced some $500 million to farmers. Our farmers, particularly the grain and oilseed farmers, are going through the biggest crisis that they have gone through since the 1930s. As a result of that crisis, many farmers have now left the land.
Between the fall 1999 and the fall 2000, over 20,000 farmers in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta have been forced off the land, largely because of federal government policy that is not supporting our farmers like it should be.
A few days ago there was an article in the Globe and Mail which stated that the American government supports its farmers or subsidizes the grain farmers to the tune of eight times more than we do. That is why American farmers are better off. The European farmers are better off yet in terms of money that they get from Brussels. The government across the way is staring a big farm crisis in the face and instead of providing more money for the farmers, $1 billion or $1.5 billion instead of $500 million, it is giving $100 billion in tax cuts, many to the wealthy and the big corporations. That is wrong and that is why we should be changing the economic and fiscal direction of the Government of Canada.
That is what the bill is all about. We are implementing the fiscal moves and the taxation cuts of the Minister of Finance. What he is doing is wrong in terms of the direction of Canada. We only have so much money. We only have a pie of a certain size.
If $100 billion goes into cutting taxes, how much will be left for farmers and for health care? How much will be left to fight poverty and to fight the problems of the environment which are worsening day in and day out? We do not have a very proud record in terms of the environment.
If $100 billion goes into cutting taxes and padding the pockets of big bankers and the wealthy, how much will be left for the first nations and the Metis? How much will be left for social housing, students, tuition fees and the education system? How much will be left for science and technology in terms of research and development? How much will be left for the infrastructure needs in the towns, cities and municipalities? How much will be left for fishermen on the east and west coasts, for the lumbering industry in British Columbia and elsewhere, or for the mining industry?
If we spend $100 billion out of $100 billion, depending upon the slowdown in the economy, or $100 billion out of $130 billion if the economy does not slow down as much as feared by many people, how much will be left for the real priorities of Canadians?
When we have the government party and the official opposition party applauding a massive tax cut—in fact the opposition wants an even larger tax cut than provided by the Minister of Finance—it shows how out of touch those parties are with the priorities and needs of ordinary Canadians.
Canadians want to have money invested in people. They want a people's agenda. In 1995, when the present Minister of Finance brought down his budget, it was the people of the country who suffered through the most massive cutbacks we have ever had by a federal government in Canada.
Some of those cutbacks had to occur because of the tremendous problem of the debt and the deficit, but instead of just cutting back in a more moderate and selective way we had the slash and burn policy by the minister across the way.
My Liberal friend from Winnipeg was horrified by the big cuts to the health care system. He knows the health care system very well. My Liberal friend from Peterborough was horrified by the cutbacks in transfers in terms of education. He knows post-secondary education very well, being an old professor from Trent University in Peterborough. When I say old, I mean a man with a lot of seniority.
We have a parliamentary system where government members have to sit on their hands, be mute and say “Aye, aye, good soldier” when they vote in the House of Commons on particular bills. It is up to us to try to persuade the Minister of Finance of the error of his ways.
In the last decade, the decade of the nineties we saw the gap between the rich and the poor widening once again. Throughout the sixties, seventies and into the eighties the gap between the wealthy and the poor was narrowing. In the sixties and into the seventies we had the advent of proper old age pensions and the Canada pension plan. Between 1972 and 1974 we had a minority parliament with the Liberals and NDP working in combination. We had the indexing of social programs like the old age pension and an increase of transfers to the provinces for health care.
As a result of the real emphasis on social policy and on social justice we saw the gap between the rich and the poor narrow throughout the sixties, seventies and into the eighties. What happened in the nineties, particularly after 1995? There has been a widening of the gap between the rich and the poor, where the wealthiest 20% of the people are making more and more of the national income and the poorest 20% of the people are making less and less.
One only has to look at two studies, one by Statistics Canada and one by the Vanier Institute of the Family. Both had the same conclusion. The gap between the rich and the poor was widening and not narrowing throughout the nineties.
When we talk about the budget, taxation and monetary and fiscal policy, we should be looking at how we can narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. We should look at how we give more opportunities to each and every single Canadian. We should look at how we can create more of a common good in terms of our policies, in terms of greater equality of condition and sharing and opportunities for every Canadian.
Instead we are going the other way. We are creating more and more poor and disadvantaged people. All one has to do is go to the inner cities of Regina, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal or Winnipeg to see that there are more homeless people.
Walking from my hotel this morning, I saw a couple of homeless people sitting on the street begging for money. It was around 7.30 a.m or 8.00 a.m. That is a common scene in Ottawa and it is only two or three blocks away from Parliament Hill. Yet we have the Canadian Alliance and the government saying we need more money for big tax cuts for the wealthy.
The member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik comes from a relatively poor riding. When the Minister of Finance decided to cut taxes for the rich and large corporations in Canada, the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik stayed in his seat and did not say a single word about the fiscal policy of the Canadian government.
It is time for a member such as him, who represents a region where there is much poverty, to stand up and tell the finance minister that his fiscal policy is all wrong, that it is unfair for the country, that it is inequitable for Canadians. We do not see that happening in the House.
I mentioned the widening gap between the rich and the poor. I mentioned the cutbacks in education and health. I mentioned the cutbacks to our farmers. We had millions of dollars cut from farm programs in the last number of years. I believe the time has come to reverse the direction of the Government of Canada and to once again start investing in programs that help ordinary people.
Instead of having a $100 billion tax cut, let us spend most of that money on health care and education, on opportunities for low income people and on giving opportunities to the first nations and the Metis people, who in many cases live in situations that are very similar to countries in the Third World. We are not doing.
There are still parts of the country where the unemployment rate is much too high. There are more and more soup kitchens. There are more people living on the streets. There are more shelters for homeless people and more food banks. These are opening all the time. At the same time we see the closures of bank branches, we see the opening of food banks. All this is happening in a country that is extremely wealthy and in a country with tremendous advantages, education and resources.
What we need now is the public policy to make the proper decisions. We need to invest in our people. We need to invest in our farmers to make sure they have the equality of condition with the American and European farmers, which would put them on a level playing field. If we do that, the farmer will produce. Farmers will be selling their products and creating jobs in urban Canada. This will benefit the whole economy.
We need to invest in health care and education. We need to invest in the people to create in the future the most highly skilled workforce in the world second to none. If we do that, we will be a stronger, more viable country.
