Have the Liberals introduced legislation to make our streets safe?
Lost his last election, in 2000, with 22% of the vote.
Liberal Party October 25th, 1994
Have the Liberals introduced legislation to make our streets safe?
Liberal Party October 25th, 1994
Have the Liberals cut spending?
Liberal Party October 25th, 1994
Have the Liberals introduced long overdue social reform?
Liberal Party October 25th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, as this freshman Liberal government prepares to graduate into its sophomore year, our party feels that the time has come for a pop quiz. Backbenchers, feel free to participate.
Have the Liberals eliminated the gold-plated MP pension plan?
Supply October 25th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, yes I do. Not only do I, but there is a comment I would like to make with all respect to the hon. member who asked me that question. He has made a suggestion to his government and he has been making suggestions to the Canadian public for the last few years.
Nobody with any intelligence or any brains over on the government side even gives this man the time of day or the attention that his ideas and suggestions deserve. After we make the proper cuts that are required, after we find out what the government needs to spend, whether it is $100 billion or $80 billion, then get rid of the Income Tax Act and replace it with a flat tax, a proportional tax. Our tax is a little different than what he is proposing, but we would definitely support him. He is not being listened to. He must be about the most frustrated member. He is not a backbencher and he cannot get the attention of the government. I would be embarrassed to be sitting on that side of the House.
Supply October 25th, 1994
I will entertain another question if the members opposite have the courage to ask me.
Supply October 25th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I find it extremely humorous that I have to re-evaluate. We have proposed for the last three years to balance the budget over a three-year period. It is through a combination of spending cuts and growth in the economy. If the hon. member opposite and all of his frontbench cabinet ministers would listen, the Reform Party policy is the following: We would cut about $18 billion, $19 billion, $20 billion over a three-year period in various ways, shapes and forms, listening to the people. When we get in we would expect those cuts, especially making those cuts in the first year of our mandate-which the party opposite did not have the political will to do-would help to stimulate the economy.
It is not $40 billion in one year. Is that very clear, Mr. Speaker? I know you understand it, but through you do the members understand that? It is not $40 billion in one year. It is $18 billion to $20 billion over three years and the rest comes from growth. I hope I have put that to rest and that I have been quite clear.
I am letting something affect me which as a professional football player I was told never to do. I am developing rabbit ears. While I am speaking to you, Mr. Speaker, I am hearing noises from the members opposite. We are not supposed to hear that. We are supposed to give our speeches and answer the questions. I am trying to do that.
Do we have any time left on this?
Supply October 25th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address our motion requesting the government table a clear, detailed plan to show how and when it intends to balance the budget.
For years the Reform Party has been saying that the deficit and the debt and the interest costs to service that debt together constitute the single most critical problem facing Canada today.
We have been saying this loud and clear for the past year in the House as well. As the debt clock continues to tick its way into the second half of a trillion dollars, we are increasingly aware that the old way of doing things in Canada simply does not work any more. The Liberals are standing firm on their policy of status quo federalism while the Bloc Quebecois continues to push its separatist agenda.
Reformers believe that these two approaches do not cut it for Canada. There is another option for a new and better Canada and we would like to invite people to have a look at what we intend to build on our side of the fence. Like a house, Canada is mortgaged to the tune of $534 billion. The interest payments on this mortgage alone eat up one-third of our tax dollars, leaving less money for social programs and for government services. That is why there is a need to balance the budget.
Even in the red book the Liberals have pointed out the dangers of continual deficits in the $30 billion range. What have they planned to do this year? Simply add $39 billion to the debt. By the end of the first three years of their mandate they will have added another $100 billion to the debt.
The time has come to build a home that we can live in comfortably without adding further to our mortgage. We must start by having a foundation of responsible spending and set priorities so that we can afford things that are really important, like strong walls and a good roof instead of wasting money on frills like gold bathroom fixtures and swimming pools.
Our building plan trims the size of the federal government, carefully prioritizes social spending, and cuts out frills like multiculturalism funding, subsidies for businesses and special interest groups, the gold bathroom fixtures to which I was referring.
On this note I would like to focus attention on where and what to cut in the area of special interest groups. As many of you know, the Reform Party does not court special interest lobbies and is opposed to the subsidization of such groups with government funds. The reason for this is straightforward. Political interest lobbies have a singular political purpose and that is to advance their own agenda. We feel strongly that taxpayers should not be shouldering the cost of their activities.
The National Action Committee on the Status of Women for example receives about $5 million a year of taxpayers' money while claiming to represent the interests of all women in Canada. What have Canadian women received for this money? Calls for pay equity, which pushes the country away from embracing hiring practices based on merit and not gender, demands for a national day care system when the majority of parents would prefer to raise their children themselves, given a better tax situation.
The fact is that based on recent polls more than half of Canadian women have not even heard of NAC. NAC has about 2,000 card carrying, money donating supporters. They claim higher totals but this is because every member of the YWCA is automatically added as a member of their organization.
These 2,000 supporters are a stark contrast to the women's group called REAL Women which has over 40,000 members, collects no government subsidies and gets its money from the people it purports to represent.
The fact is that when the government subsidizes political lobby groups it subsidizes only some and not others. Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut funding to NAC.
On another front the Canadian taxpayer is paying millions of dollars annually for union leaders to understand the importance of the Canadian labour movement. The total handouts by the Department of Labour during the period of 1989 to 1992 to unions was almost $18 million. If unions would dedicate their members' dues to union business rather than political action they would not need handouts from the taxpayers. Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut funding to unions.
As a businessman I have seen people take advantage of government subsidies and grants, not because they need to but because the money was served on a gold platter. Here it is, take it. It is called incentives. Staggering sums continue to be ladled out in handouts to businesses despite the fact that national business groups have called on the federal government to stop giving them money. This money usually comes from giant slush funds known as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Western Economic Diversification Agency. The 1994-95 estimates have almost $1.3 billion being funnelled through these agencies on pork barrel programs.
Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut funding to pork barrel agencies, including his own federal office of regional development, a $400 million program in the province of Quebec.
I have a question. Why Olympic Saddledome renovations when Calgary needs $60 million worth of sewer repairs? The infrastructure program simply puts Canadians $6 billion further into debt and the jobs they create are over when the money runs out. Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut out infrastructure immediately and quit tempting Canadians with my grandchildren's money.
The government is tilting the playing field, giving financial assistance to just those groups it wants to hear from. The idea that the government is looking out for the interests of all Canadians is just a smoke screen. It is only a select few that count.
A perfect example of this will become apparent in the next couple of months with the much talked about consultations across Canada on social and economic reforms. The government favoured special interest groups have already been given their advance notice to prepare their presentations while ordinary citizens have been left to their own devices.
The game goes on and it is habit forming, so much so that the government even continues to give money to groups to lobby for things that the general public actually agrees with. Here is a good example. I do not smoke and the majority of Canadians do not smoke. The health minister and her department clearly want to put an end to smoking. I do not have a problem with that but can someone tell me why we paid $200,000 to the Non-Smokers' Rights Association to tell us what we already know? Incidentally, the Non-Smokers' Rights Association has just 300 paid up members. That is not what I would call significant public support. Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut funding to the Non-Smokers' Rights Association.
The simple truth is that we are now on the verge of losing our home to foreign creditors. We simply cannot continue to give borrowed money to people who have no proper claim to it.
Direct government subsidies to business distort the marketplace and punish success in order to subsidize failure. Money is taken from successful people in businesses and reallocated to unsuccessful people and unsuccessful businesses in the name of job creation. In the same way that government subsidies to business distort the economic marketplace, subsidies to political lobby groups distort the political marketplace of ideas.
In a true democracy this is intolerable. That is why the Reform Party believes that people should be free to express their views but use their own financial resources. That is why we are against special interest funding. If an idea has merit and is deserving of public support, that idea will rise on its own with financial assistance from the people who support that view. If not, then the idea will fade away as it deserves. Let the people speak rather than the subsidized lobby groups.
It is time to cut spending and stop giving money to those who do not deserve it. It does not take months of consultation, task forces, studies and commissions to understand this fact. The Liberals, three years prior to becoming the government, wrote studies and went across the country. The Prime Minister asked them too. They have already consulted with people and they still do not know what the people are saying. I do not know when they will get it.
People at the grassroots level are saying quite clearly that they will no longer subsidize special interest activities with their hard earned tax dollars. Gone are the days of needless government frills and fancy fixtures.
Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister of Finance, if the government wants to start cutting it can start right here. Cut spending on special interest groups and save taxpayers a half a billion dollars. Cut spending and stop direct business subsidies and save taxpayers $1.3 billion.
Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister and to the Liberal government, let us build a mortgage free home that we can all afford and pass on to our children and our grandchildren with pride.
Supply October 25th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I hear that the hon. member opposite is proud of the $275 billion that the Liberal government contributed to this wonderful national debt.
If they are going to blame the Conservatives for a portion of it we really believe that these members should take their share as well.
My question for the hon. member is when it comes to the deficit and to balancing the budget, which they claim now after they have listened to the Reform Party long enough, what sense of urgency does the member opposite have to getting to a zero deficit and a balanced budget? What sense of urgency does the hon. member have in getting to a balanced budget?
Infrastructure October 24th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, as the National Hockey League regular season remains on hold flooding continues to occur in Calgary Centre.
Unfortunately that flooding is not taking place on the ice in the Olympic Saddledome but in the worn out storm sewers of northwest Calgary. Recently Calgary residents had their homes flooded out for the third time this year while the $8 million infrastructure renovations to the run down, obsolete, dilapidated Saddledome continue without interruption.
This government defined infrastructure as physical assets instrumental in the provision of public services, not private. By the government's own definition this is not infrastructure money but a direct subsidy to private business.
I question the government's sense of priorities when the needs of the sports world outweigh those of the real world.
The only thing that is obsolete and dilapidated in Calgary is not the 10-year old Saddledome but the pork-barrel policies of this Liberal government.
Lest it forget, the debt today is $535,538,939,082.82.