Deborah Grey

[Health, April 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's health care system is in crisis. What is the Prime Minister's answer? He says that the provinces should not cut taxes, never mind that his government slashed $25 billion when it came to office, never mind that it bungled $1 billion over at HRDC alone and never mind that over the weekend he boasted about being a living testament “to patronage at its best”.

Why does the Prime Minister care so little about health and so much about patronage?

[Employment, March 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that when the ACOA program was created in 1988 virtually everyone who was here on the Liberal side of the House voted against it because they had concerns about how much actual job creation it would give.

The Liberal government is manipulating Canadians. The minister can stand and blame the press, blame the opposition, blame anyone he likes, but he knows that Cape Bretoners are reeling right now.

The government is on record as saying that these programs do not actually create long term jobs. Cape Bretoners deserve better than this. I am sure the minister would agree with me that these Liberal PR exercises are pretty hollow. Why do the Liberals continue to betray Cape Bretoners and Canadians so that they can just benefit politically?

[Employment, March 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the minister can try to sell it as wonderful news, but in fact his own government has no real idea how many actual jobs will be created.

In fact, I would like to quote from the industry minister. These are his very concerns. This does not come from the press. This is a direct quote. He said “When I first became responsible for ACOA we talked about the credibility of these job forecasts. They have proven to be lacking in credibility”. That was the actual industry minister whose umbrella it is to oversee ACOA.

If the actual minister does not even trust those numbers, why should Cape Bretoners?

[Employment, March 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, today the Prime Minister is down at a Liberal convention in Cape Breton playing the old Liberal game of handouts. He is promising millions of dollars of public money to an American company to lure it to set up shop in Cape Breton.

Cape Bretoners are still reeling from Devco. That is the last failed job creation scheme and now the Liberals are unleashing another on those people down there. Is this really about jobs for Cape Bretoners or is it about reviving Liberal fortunes in that part of the country?

[Human Resources Development, March 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the way we would have it is that honest public servants would be proud of the job they are doing without political interference.

The audit said that control was a four letter word. The audit said “The old virtues of prudence, probity, economy, efficiency and effectiveness are not as deeply embedded in the HRDC culture as they could be”, or probably as they used to be. Things are much different there now.

The minister's response was that she would “find modern methods” of control. What is the important modern method? Is it incompetence? Is it patronage? Is it waste? Or, is it this boondoggle that this government—

[Human Resources Development, March 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this is a little story tale here. She said that she wanted to make it public and she made it public. In fact we had to wait beyond the imposed limit of law, a month beyond that, before we even got this audit. She was not exactly parading it around as a success story.

That audit was an internal warning that there were serious ethical problems in the department. I will quote from it. It says “Employees were not convinced that they could report suspected contraventions without fear of reprisal”. This is nothing to brag about; they are talking about fear.

How is forcing honest employees to keep quiet any benefit to the minister?

[Human Resources Development, March 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we asked the HRDC minister to explain why neither she nor her predecessor did anything to address the damning indictment of her department's ethics in the 1998 audit. Her response was “That was 18 months ago”, basically, “Who cares”.

The point is that she should care because it was her government that was in power for the five years leading up to that audit. It created the problem and then it ignored it.

Why are ethics not of concern to this government?

[The Budget, March 29th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, boy, there is a ramble. If that is how the Liberals do math on the other side I can understand why we have some pretty serious problems.

The hon. member is talking about a tax plan and $26 billion in surpluses. The member would know that the most conservative estimates of 2.5%, 3%, 3.5% in economic growth are very, very conservative, so we have estimated those surpluses probably not quite as hugely or as magnificently as the finance minister. I think he was talking about $95 billion a year.

The member asked me a question about our solution 17. I would like to tell him, as I certainly hope he knows, because I know he does his research well, that WEFA, the economic forecasting think tank, said that the solution 17 which we have proposed under the Canadian Alliance would be absolutely workable. WEFA ran the numbers once, twice, perhaps even three times and said that this would be a workable solution.

I know the hon. member would jump up if he had another chance to be recognized and ask who these people are who we found to come up with numbers the way we wanted the numbers to be. In fact, it is the very same group that does the economic forecasting and think tank work for the Minister of Finance. That group ran exactly the same numbers for him.

I put my faith in solution 17. It has been verified by the very group that verifies the budget, the finance minister's plan. I think if solution 17 were implemented it would be terrific. There would be a basic exemption of $10,000 for person A , and then the spouse would get another $10,000.

What if a person is not married? I was not married for it seemed like forever, but I am now and I love Lew. If a person does not have a spouse, he or she could claim a child as a spousal equivalent. People would get a $20,000 exemption before they would even have to think about paying tax.

I think the couple in Calgary to whom the member referred earlier would be wonderfully blessed by solution 17.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to be the last speaker in the budget debate.

I sat through the spring session which began on February 7 and it was interesting to think about what it was this budget was trying to accomplish, what the great fanfare was all about. We heard about how wonderful the budget was, how there was going to be tax relief and how every Canadian would actually feel better when they went to bed at night.

As members know and have watched, superseding that we have witnessed in the House day after day questions and serious concerns about the actual financial mismanagement of the government. Of course the Liberals brag all the time about how they are great managers of our money, and yet we saw a billion dollars not go missing or lost, as the HRD minister likes to accuse us of suggesting, but go to many of the wrong places. It has gone for political motivation, maybe buying a seat if someone was in close danger of losing a seat in any particular election.

People have asked me why I have not actually asked a question about the budget. This scandal and the billion dollar boondoggle is the budget. It is about unbelievable spending and unbelievable waste, and yet I noticed in the budget that the government in all government departments will spend $13.3 billion on grants and contributions. That is a pile of money. As people across the country have watched the HRDC scandal and this amazing boondoggle, they have said that they resent working hard, sending their money to Ottawa in the form of tax dollars and then having it disappear to various places.

The question is not whether some of the HRDC programs are good. There are benefits in some of the things that have happened, but that is a debate for another day. What we and Canadians across the country are critical of is this unbelievable waste and unbelievable sense that government has largesse and is free to hand this money out to whomever it pleases for either political or personal purposes.

That is the frustration which I think people feel across the country, and it is probably not just in ridings that are not held by Liberals. I have spoken to Liberal members of parliament who have gone home to try to pump the budget as being wonderful, and yet the question that comes back to them is about the money that is being mismanaged. I think that all of us have been asked that question.

I was at the Alberta Land Titles Registry just before the budget came down. A fellow who was standing in line and did not recognize me or my husband said “Maybe I should get an HRDC grant for this”. We know, if people are hanging out in offices or coffee shops or whatever and the level of discussion from parliament has filtered down to the ground level so that people are using it as buzzwords and saying things like “Maybe I should get an HRDC grant”, that the public is starting to register their frustration. They are saying that it is their cash and they want a few answers.

When the budget talked about tax relief and told Canadians about tax relief, I am not so sure they were convinced. People right across the country are saying “Don't tell me, show me”. They want to see physical proof on their paystubs that they are getting tax relief.

I have to tell members that I have not been swamped in my constituency office or on an airplane or in a washroom at Pearson airport or on Parliament Hill with people saying that the tax relief feels good. In fact I have not had one person tell me that. They are hearing about that tax relief, but they are not seeing it. The government has told them how wonderful it is, but nobody has come thundering down to my door saying “I love this tax relief. It feels so good”.

Let us look at some of the numbers. We were told, with trumpets on budget day, that taxes will decrease $58.4 billion. That ought to feel good. That is a pile of cash. That money is not just going back into peoples' pockets, it means that the circle is complete by not having to send that money to Ottawa in the first place. The finance minister thought that $58.4 billion was wonderful and that people would feel much better and happier.

I have never been good at magic, but what I saw happen that day and in the ensuing weeks was probably one of the best magic acts we have seen in a while. We put our hand in the hat, pull it out and say “Wow, there is $58.4 billion in tax relief”. However, if we look at it, the rabbit that came out of that hat has a different thing to say.

The finance minister said that the $58.4 billion in tax relief was going to be over five years, but if we look at the numbers and scratch a little deeper this is what we find.

Sure, we have the Liberal claim of $58.4 billion in tax relief over five years, but then we have to do the math, the real math, not the new math and not the Liberal math. If we did that we would find that there is a minus. Over five years $7.5 billion will be used for social spending on the child benefit. That is not really tax relief. It is a social program, so we cannot really say that it is tax relief. Off the top we have to take $7.5 billion.

Then of course there is a mere $29.5 billion that has to be subtracted in increased Canada pension plan premiums over the same five year period. If a person was a responsible finance minister or any other member of government they would say “Whoops”. That really does need to be fit into the equation because $58.4 billion is not all that it is trumpeted up to be.

Off that amount we have to take $29.5 billion because with the shell game that the Liberals are playing they say they are giving us $58.4 billion, but they forget to say that they are taking $29.5 billion off in increased CPP premiums. Every single Canadian who is working knows that since the beginning of January they have had a few more dollars snapped off their paycheques in CPP premiums. This could have been an oversight, it could have been an accident, but we do have to figure the $29.5 billion into the mathematical equation.

We have to make another subtraction from the $58.4 billion. There is $13.5 billion in scheduled tax hikes which have been cancelled. There are some pretty hot semantics. “We are giving Canadians an amazing deal. We are giving Canadians $13.5 billion in tax breaks, but in fact”—and this is the new math, the Liberal math—“what we are doing is cancelling what Canadians were going to be hit with”. Canadians really had not paid that money anyway. They would have gotten stuck with paying it if the program had carried on. The government is not really taking this money off taxes. It was going to nail us with that, but decided not to. I suppose that could be called a tax break.

I taught English, not math. Math is not my finest suit, but I could figure that much out. If someone said they were going to hit me with something and then said they were not going to hit me, then I am not really getting a break. I am then told that I will not to be hit quite as badly as planned by scheduled increases. That is not exactly terrific. It is not a tax break.

Let us do the mathematical equation. I have a mathematician sitting behind me, one of my colleagues, who knows his math better than I do and some others in this Chamber. If we take $58.4 billion and subtract $7.5 billion, and then subtract $29.5 billion, and then subtract $13.5 billion, that equals $7.9 billion in tax relief. That is not quite as glamorous as it seemed when the budget was being delivered.

This will happen over five years, so we need to divide that amount by five, which equals $1.58 billion per year. If we want to work that amount down a bit, because that is still quite a few zeros, let us look at it this way. This wonderful tax cut which everyone is bragging about, while they are waltzing around the country telling people how wonderful they are, equals $107.06 per year per taxpayer. If that does not seem quite so glamorous, it equals $8.97 a month or $2.07 a week.

I can understand why people have not been coming like rolling thunder into my office out west to say they are thrilled with $2.07 a week. A person cannot even go to McDonald's on that amount. That is why people are not praising the government for this wonderful tax relief which the Liberals bragged about in the budget.

The Canadian public want straight answers on the billion dollar boondoggle and where that money has gone. Canadians are far more concerned about that than the $2 a week they will be getting with this hotshot tax relief.

[Human Resources Development, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it would appear that there is a deliberate effort to make sure these audits do not become public.

Let me quote again: “Only three in ten employees agree that people can voice concerns about ethical breaches without repercussion”.

This is 18 months old and these people are not satisfied with what the minister contends to be her solution to the problem.

I would ask her this and I would like an answer. Why are HRD employees being punished for being ethical?