Lost his last election, in 2000, with 28% of the vote.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
Let us ask Clyde Wells. I am just using this as a good case study. We want to look around the world and ask where governments seem to work. They seemed to work under CCF and NDP governments in Saskatchewan and under the NDP government in British Columbia.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
Part of getting the fiscal house in management in the province of Saskatchewan and in the province of British Columbia has been the recognition that we have to get the debt and deficit under control as well. No question about that.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from my hon. friend.
I want to clarify one point that he made, or perhaps add clarification. I do not think he was saying that the Social Credit government actually managed the state of the province well. That is not my view.
We will all recall that when the New Democrat government took over office in British Columbia it brought in one of the more internationally recognized accounting firms to evaluate the books and it found the whole place a complete financial disaster. We will start from that and then go on, much the same as this government is finding the Conservative situation regarding the whole country.
I will acknowledge the point that we have seen a general understanding that it is important to get the debt and the deficit under control in British Columbia for some time.
There is probably no province in which that has been demonstrated more clearly than the province of Saskatchewan, if my memory serves me. There seems to have been a pattern. This is an interesting pattern, although I do not want to take up a lot of the time of the House by talking about it. It just seems natural that people change governments. They elect another government, either a Liberal or a Tory government and it turns the whole place into a financial disaster. Then it gets tossed out and in comes the CCF or the NDP again. It gets everything in order over a period of time. This just plays itself out.
That is a reality and just the way things go in that province.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
My friend says "good weather". Yes, perhaps we get good weather and we are happy for that. However, I am thinking of things more to do with the federal government at this point. I know it lays claim to all sorts of things but the weather of Canada would not be one.
Is there a single federal program in which the government participates with the Government of British Columbia in which the people of British Columbia get their fair share? I could present a long list with the figures of where we do not. I do not believe that is necessary. I simply want to make the point.
Even within that climate, even recognizing that I do not think there is a single federal program in which British Columbia receives its fair share, at least based on population, we still do not begrudge the fact that we are going to be participating in this equalization program.
In all my years as a member of Parliament and in all the discussions I have had with my constituents and others, I have never heard anybody complain about the willingness to share. I hear a lot about getting the short end of the stick, or getting skewered or all sorts of other fancy names we could put to that in terms of our fair share regarding the federal government. However I will let that stand for the moment. There will be other opportunities to raise this.
I simply want to say in closing that I appreciate having the chance to participate in this debate. However I do not want to get into the Reform Party schtick of saying: "Mary Bloggs from this town asked me to raise this question". I have been asked to at least raise the question on behalf of the city of Vancouver in terms of what it perceives to be an unfairness. It certainly is not unique to the city of Vancouver or unique to any particular city. It is regarding immigration policy.
The federal government establishes its immigration policy. The minister of immigration indicated the other day a new set of quotas or limits on the numbers, acknowledging that a major share of those immigrants end up in the greater Vancouver area. Then it is left to the school boards and the taxpayers of Vancouver to the pick up the necessary language training and and so on, at least to a certain extent.
The government is asking for some consideration. With the reality of immigration in certain selected parts of Canada, should there not be more attention given by the federal government to acknowledge that and to assist and co-operate in terms of providing the appropriate services for new Canadians?
To be fair, I acknowledge that there are programs that work toward that end but when it comes to English language training or teaching English as a second language, particularly in our school system, the costs are becoming over burdening.
I simply want to conclude by saying that I have been pleased to participate in this debate. I look forward, particularly at committee, to see a more thorough examination of the some the points raised by my hon. friends and I look forward to third reading debate some time the future.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
We have to see Bill C-3 in a number of contexts. What other programs has the federal government involved itself in of a similar nature?
My colleague earlier referred to the EPF, the established programs financing, where for health care and post-secondary education the federal government contributes about $11 billion. The Canadian assistance plan or CAP as it is referred to has $7 billion where the federal government shares in the development of a variety of social programs.
The whole area of tax points has to be included as well as a whole host of shared cost programs. Almost $12 billion last year was involved with a sharing program between the federal and provincial governments. In our province, the program that comes to mind is the forestry agreement, FRDA. It is a very helpful investment program where both provincial and federal governments work in co-operation with the private sector in British Columbia and invest in the future of the forest resource and ensure sustained development in the years ahead.
The federal government in its wisdom decided it would not do that any more. It would pull out of this program. Recognizing that forestry is our number one export in Canada, the federal government abandoned the ministry of forests and is moving out of its contributions to the FRDA program. It is a very regressive step.
One has to raise this issue. Recently when the government introduced the infrastructure program, it said that every province would have a certain allocation. The allocation in British
Columbia was $220 million. This was done on a population basis essentially plus or minus 5 per cent depending on the state of unemployment in a province. In other words here was an effort at some equalization. Often this takes place in federal programs.
The question I would raise is that if we have a whole program for equalization in which we try to create a relatively level playing field in terms of the ability of provincial governments to provide services and having relatively similar revenue systems in place as well, is it necessary when we take that step on such a massive scale as we are doing with this legislation to also have a whole set of other equalization programs in place? Is not one good one enough?
We have to look at this within that context and say we are dealing with equalization with Bill C-3, but what about all the other areas in which equalization is also attempted? To see the value of this legislation, whether it should continue, whether it should be expanded, whether it should be reduced or maintained as is, I think we have to see it in that context and we do not have enough information here. Perhaps in committee we could ask for that and then have a more serious discussion there.
I guess this is my complaint section during my presentation. I hear other provinces complaining that they do not get enough, that they have this size of population and so on. Over the years I have never been able to identify a single federal program in which the province of British Columbia gets its fair share. There might be one some place. I have yet to find a single one that is based on our population within Canada.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
My cheek is bulging. I said that with my tongue in my cheek. What Mr. Klein is doing is a typical Conservative or perhaps Reform approach to the world. We will see how that works out in the next few months.
We tried a different approach in British Columbia. We tried what I would call the real New Democrat approach of can we bring that deficit under control without emasculating the social programs. Yes, we have. As a matter of fact I do not think there is an economist in Canada who can say that is not taking place. Anybody who understands the financial markets would say it is not taking place.
To be fair, it is not only because of Mike Harcourt and the New Democrats. There are other reasons but I just wanted to make the point because hardly anybody ever makes it these days so I felt some obligation to raise it in the House.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
The answer is British Columbia. There is no question. My friend says "Alberta". I have watched Mr. Klein at work and how he is approaching this along with how wonderful he is doing.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
Part of the reason is the good government. We constantly hear that international investors and so on are very concerned about the government of the day, particularly about its fiscal responsibility and so on. We can ask the question rhetorically. Which provincial government has been best able to control the deficits of their province?
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
Part of it is because of the good government.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act February 9th, 1994
My hon. friend wishes to get into the debate a little later as well I hear.
What I am saying is that we are happy in British Columbia. There are all sorts of reasons for the prosperity and that people from all across Canada are moving to British Columbia to take up residence.