Alex Shepherd

[Government Of Ontario, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to take part in a round table discussion in Coutice in my riding last Thursday. This meeting centred on economic development and transportation in Durham. We had representatives from agriculture, municipal government, truckers, environmentalists, and indeed from all walks of life.

The people of Durham are tired of the finger pointing that the Harris government of Queen's Park is so famous for. While we work into the wee hours of the morning here in Ottawa, the legislature in Queen's Park has not even sat this year. We know which government is working for the people and which is not.

The people of Durham want government to work toward resolving their health care problems. Canadians know that over $80 billion in total health care spending, or around 9.2% of our GDP, makes us one of the biggest spenders in health care in the world.

No, it is not about money. It is about management of that money. The Harris government taking health care money out of designated trust accounts and spending it on other things is part of the management problem. The people of Durham want the Harris government to stop playing cheap politics and get back to work.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I think the essence of that question was that I should be ashamed because I am standing here trying to prevent taxpayers' money from being misspent. I am not ashamed at all. I will defend the taxpayers of the province of Quebec if I have to. The finance minister for Quebec is saying “It is not about money. It is not about spending money. We cannot find the doctors, so we are not going to spend the money anyway”.

Am I ashamed of defending the taxpayers of Quebec? Not on your life.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, looking at the motion which is before us today, members of the NDP are co-conspirators with the Harris government because they have come to this place and said “Give us more money. Mr. Harris wants more money. Give us more money”.

They are the co-conspirators with the likes of Mr. Harris and Mr. Klein, who have no intention of spending it on the people.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Two cents. Should we give the province of Ontario or the province of Quebec another 2 cents when that has been the track record? Ontario took $625 million of our money, said it was going to spend it on health care and did not spend it at all.

It took money out of a trust account, which was being held in trust for the people of Ontario, and then did not spend it on them. For all the people who are lined up in the wards, and for all the people who are having trouble with health care in Ontario, and in Quebec, ask where the $625 million went.

Maybe that is a better answer than blaming the federal government, because we gave it to them. We spent it on the province of Ontario, but the province of Ontario did not spend it on the people. It did not spend it on the sick. It did not spend it on those people who are being threatened on a daily basis by disease. It did not spend it on the frail. It did not spend it on the aging. I do not know what the province spent it on. It spent it on its rich friends, I guess, or the $4.7 billion in tax cuts, but it did not spend it on the province of Ontario.

We are not going to give the province any more money. We should not have given it that money, if that is the way it spends. We need an accountability system in the country which will tell us where the money has been spent and will ensure that it goes to the people. Do not tell me it is about more money.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Broadview—Greenwood.

I am very happy to engage in this debate dealing with health care spending by the federal government and the provinces. It seems to me that the problem is the whole issue of accountability. To the people who are in their living rooms watching this debate and who are concerned about the health care issue, it is appropriate for us to ask not about whether it is new money we need, but how the money was spent in the past. We can judge the sincerity of secondary levels of governments by how they are spending the actual moneys we transfer to them.

A number of people have mentioned the report on what the province of Quebec did with some of its money. It has taken it out of the account we provided last year and invested $841 million in Quebec savings bonds and Hydro Quebec. It has earned something like $16 million in interest. The point is the money was not spent on health care.

We have had a lot of complaints from the province of Ontario, and Mr. Harris in particular, that it needs more money because the money provided in the last federal budget was not adequate. Ontario is pounding on the table and is really upset because it did not get enough money. It is very appropriate that we sit down and ask what the province of Ontario did with the money it already had.

I am drawing my information not from my notes but from the Ontario government's budget book, pages 38 and 55 and from its third quarter fiscal results dated February 4, 2000. Looking through those pages I see that of the $3.5 billion allocation that was made in fiscal year 1999-2000, the province of Ontario's share was $1.323 billion. I also see in the same books that the province of Ontario drew down $755 million on that account. For those people who are watching the debate, it is very hard to relate billions and millions when most of us have a hard time finding $25 to put some gas in our tank. It does not buy very much today.

Getting back to the equation, $1.323 billion was transferred to Ontario and it drew down $755 million, which left a balance of $568 million. Of the money we gave it last year, $568 million has remained unspent.

I do not know if, like the province of Quebec, Ontario has invested it in securities and is earning interest on it. The fact is that money is still sitting there. It has not spent it at all. The important part is $755 million went into the Ontario government coffers.

In addition to the $755 million of new money, we had increased our normal allotment under the CHST by $190 million to the province of Ontario. To get all my figures together, $190 million plus the $755 million comes to $945 million. That is $945 million of new money that went to the province of Ontario in fiscal year 1999-2000.

The question is what did the province of Ontario do with this new money? The opposition party is saying it wants more money but what did Ontario do with the money it received?

I have looked through the pages of the Ontario government expenditures. What have I discovered? I have discovered that the new spending on health care for the province of Ontario for the 1999-2000 fiscal year was $320 million.

Think about that. The federal government put the money in a trust account. Ontario took $755 million out of the trust account. We gave Ontario another $190 million of new money. It had $945 million of new money. How much new money did it spend on health care? Only $320 million. The difference is $625 million that the federal government transferred to the province of Ontario that it did not spend on health care.

When thinking of a trust account, what is the concept of trust? We put money in trust and say, “We put it in trust for you and we trust you as a provincial government to spend it on your people and spend it for its original intention which is health care”. What did the province of Ontario do? Ontario withdrew this money in trust, $755 million, added it to another $190 million in new money that we gave, and only spent $320 million in new dollars.

There is $625 million missing, $625 million of Canadian taxpayers' money that was transferred to the province of Ontario to undertake new spending in health care that never happened.

We talk about accountability in government. This is the problem with this whole debate. People blame us for the health care system but we do not control how the money is being spent. This is a clear example. Mr. Harris has the audacity to shout all over the land today, “We need more money. We did not get enough money from you guys”, when in fact the province of Ontario got $625 million new dollars which it stuck in its back pocket and never spent on the people of Ontario.

If that were not enough, in its fiscal estimates the province of Ontario now anticipates an additional $1 billion surplus this fiscal year. Is that not an amazing thing. There is $625 million seemingly missing and the province of Ontario now has a $1 billion surplus, a surplus $1 billion larger than it was going to have in the first place. What did the province of Ontario do with this money? I do not know.

We do know the province of Ontario spent $4.7 billion in tax cuts. Perhaps that is what the Ontario government did with it. We know that it has done all kinds of other spending. Worse than that we know it also raised its deficit by $20 billion. Those people in Ontario are spending money like drunken sailors, but it is not going into the health care system.

Members of the opposition have been saying that only 3 cents went to health care.

[The Budget, February 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to answer the member's questions. I know she is very concerned about the shipbuilding industry. It is a big industry in Saint John and I am aware of the high tech aspect of it. The member will find that there are certain ways we assist the shipbuilding business, if not directly then indirectly through the whole concept of scientific tax credits that go to some of the home based industries which supply that industry.

On the defence issue, I am very aware of the Sea Kings. I have had the fortune or misfortune to be inside them from time to time. Even some of my constituents are flying them. They often send me e-mail messages and so forth. I share the member's concerns. I know the Minister of National Defence does as well. I am certain we will free up some of those resources in the near future.

About the medical aspect of the budget, I do not believe it is all about money. Money is part of the health care problem, but we have a bigger problem. It is not this budget alone. It will be continuous budgets. All the health ministers in the country have to sit down together and find a holistic way to deal with the health care sector. We have one of the poorest users of high technology in the health care sector in the world. We have to deal with that too.

[The Budget, February 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to help the member. The process is that we have a democratic party on this side of the House, a party that listens to its caucus, a party that is interested in ensuring that its members get out and talk to their constituents and bring those views to the caucus process. It is very democratic. We do not see ejection of members because they disagree with their leader and so forth. We basically have a very democratic process, so the member is actually watching the will of the people of Canada.

I mentioned earlier that I was talking to my constituents today about the budget. They are very supportive. I took the plane back to Ottawa and when I got in the Chamber I was surprised that members for the Reform Party were talking about the flat tax. The flat tax was their argument eight years ago. I thought somehow I had entered a time warp or something when I got on the plane. I thought, my God, what happened.

The only person in North America still talking about the flat tax is Steven Forbes who just fell out of the Republican leadership race. No one in North America is still supporting the flat tax except those people over there who do not seem to have awakened to discover that people do not want it.

[The Budget, February 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to share my time with the illustrious previous speaker, the member for Chatham—Kent—Essex.

I want to report that I took the time last night to fly back to my riding to conduct a morning after exercise with my business community. It was very positive. The people told me that they positively endorse the actions of the Minister of Finance and the government. They were very supportive of us.

On the way to my meeting, I happened to listen to Premier Harris blabbing away about what a terrible thing it is and so forth. When I got to the meeting I was happy to find the provincial member of parliament, who is also a Tory. I basically said that this was not about blaming each other for the problems of health care. I said that health care was a problem but that if it was all about money it would have been fixed ages ago. I said that it was about re-engineering the health care system.

We do not actually control the administration of the health care system. What was agreed on in that room, and I think with the government as well, is that we are willing to sit down with the provinces, but that we should stop all this nonsense about blaming each other. I think the people of Canada are fed up with it. I think they want us to get on with it. We have an aging society. I think we can deal with these problems. It is a commitment of the government to deal with the issue of health care now and in the future and it has made a significant downpayment on it.

I want to specifically thank the Minister of Finance who made a very bold and brave move in ending bracket creep. It is a lot easier not to deal with this. It is a lot easier to do interim measures that deal with bracket creep as it goes along.

Many people in our society do not understand bracket creep. Bracket creep is a complex tax issue. It is an insidious tax. Although inflation keeps going up, the Bank of Canada tries to keep it within one and three percentage points, and it has been very successful. The taxation system is not indexed to address this issue. As a consequence, people pay more taxes but in real terms are not making any more money.

Bracket creep is a very insidious tax, a tax by stealth, if I may. From a political point of view, it is easy to leave it alone because people do not understand it. People sort of know it is happening to them but they cannot visualize what it is because a lot of them do not fully comprehend inflation.

We took the leadership and the wherewithal to reduce bracket creep. It was a previous Tory government which said it would reduce the indexation to 3% and shove it to the people and let them pay the tax. This was the Tory government's idea of inventive taxation.

This country and our economy is very much poised on the brink of a major economical breakthrough. It is not just me saying that. We recently received a report from the Canadian E-Business Opportunities Roundtable. I will cite some of the things it has talked about in its report. It talks about Canada being one of the most connected countries in the world. The Minister of Industry, who is with us here today, has been very supportive of this agenda. This think tank of academics and high tech people are saying that Canada can be the most connected country in the world by the year 2004. It gives me great pleasure to be part of a governmental structure that is putting its money where its mouth is to make that happen.

We realize that over $28 billion in gross revenue will be generated from e-commerce, which translates into 95,000 jobs. That industry is poised to go even further. It is poised to reach $155 billion in revenue and create 180,000 jobs. Jobs are being created in the high tech sectors and Canada can be a major player in this. We are well on our way to making that happen.

A couple of things stand in our way. This roundtable and others have made mention of some of the problems that we face. We have to invest in research and development. The NDP talked about the medicare system and how we need to put more money into medical health care and medical research. We have done that in this budget.

The United States has 7.4 researchers per 1,000 population, while Canada has only 4.7. This tells us right away that we have a significant problem to deal with in trying to catch up with our major trading partner to the south. This budget addressed some of those things.

We have set aside $900 million over the next four years for research chairs in excellence. We have set aside $700 million to develop environmental technologies and $9 billion more to top up the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and genome research. We have made major investments in our research facilities. We are putting a lot of money into those areas where knowledge based workers get basic training so that they do not have to go south of our border to get opportunities.

We have all talked and heard about the whole concept of brain drain. With the brain drain the Canadian taxpayer is really subsidizing the U.S. economy. People might be amazed when I say that, but let us look at some of the statistics.

Twenty to thirty per cent of the graduates of the Calgary DeVry institute go to California, Washington, Colorado, Minnesota and Texas. Nortel Networks is telling us that it is losing 300 to 500 engineers per year to the United States and elsewhere. This is a huge growing industry. The telecommunications industry in Canada is worth $72 billion.

We are subsidizing the U.S. economy because of the people travelling across the border and going further south. I say this out of specific interest because I have two sons who are studying information technology. They are getting offers from south of the border and are thinking about possibly going there.

Why do people leave? People on the other side of the House say it is a simple, that we are taxing people too much and that is why they are leaving. In fact a lot of studies have concluded that taxation was about 18th on the list of very important items that people identify as reasons for leaving this country with their vocations. Probably one of the most important is opportunities to deal with new technologies, to get resources and so forth. It is in those areas we have to compete with our southern neighbours.

I say that we subsidize the American economy because of this. In the period from 1982 to 1996 it is estimated that we lost $6.7 billion by people leaving our country. Some $3.7 billion of that is related to our investment in the post-secondary education of those people who leave.

In 1996, 52,608 Canadians became temporary worker immigrants in the United States. This resulted in a loss to our tax base. This is the other side of it. These people are highly taxed people because they are making lots of money. It is why we have taken some initiatives to change stock options. I heard the NDP say it was terrible thing and that we should soak the rich. These people are not necessarily rich but they want opportunities. Stock option plans give them the opportunity to invest in their companies and be part of a success story. We want to be part of it as well.

In the budget there is a $500 million rollover for people selling stock in small and medium size companies. High tech companies can roll that over without paying capital gains. That is not letting the rich off the hook. It is just common sense to have that money reinvested in our economy to create jobs and opportunities for Canadians.

I am very happy to be part of a governmental system that has provided opportunities to push Canada along the road to success. We are getting our corporate tax rates down as well from 28% to 21% for small and medium size businesses. That is coming this year. For larger businesses it is over a four year period. These are ways to make our economy more competitive with that of our trading partners. I think it a positive and a good thing, and I am very supportive of it.

[The Budget, February 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am always fascinated when members of the Bloc talk about fiscal matters because they certainly are inventive and imaginative about the way they restate the books and the public accounts of Canada.

I share with the member for Elk Island the frustration that we have in constantly having to rise to point out the fact that Quebec does quite well by this country. That does not mean that it is favoured or pampered, but Quebec certainly gets its fair share. Having people say that it does not, that it is discriminated against, is, quite frankly, untrue and an insult to our country.

The member talked about moving toward a unitary state. There is no one who has studied political science or social policy, not only in Canada but throughout the world, who would not say that Canada is the most highly decentralized federation in the world.

I want to address the issue of tax points. The member went on and on about tax points. It was once again creative economics. A lot of people do not understand tax points. Let us say that the federal tax was at 40%. I will use that figure for simplicity. The federal government, in agreement with the provinces, including Quebec, said that instead of the government taxing the provinces at 40%, it should reduce the tax by 3 or 4 percentage points and the provinces would take that back. Individual taxes would be the same. The federal government would reduce its share of direct taxation on individuals and the provinces would be able to tax directly. This was done and I am sure the province of Quebec felt it was a wonderful thing because it could tax the people directly to raise money for its social programs.

I would be very interested in knowing if the member is suggesting that we reverse the original concept of tax points and have the federal government reoccupy that level of direct taxation, with the province of Quebec similarly reducing the amount which it taxes Quebecers directly.

[Amateur Sport, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians interested in sports have suffered the setbacks of watching some of their own athletes accused of taking illicit drugs. That is why I am pleased to acknowledge the hosting in Montreal by the hon. Secretary of State for Amateur Sport of the Montreal workshop on anti-doping in sports.

In this workshop commenced yesterday Canada is playing host to over 30 international governmental delegations in a meeting to advance the role of governments in the fight against doping in sports.

It is a great distinction for Canada to play host to such a prestigious event in the field of amateur sport. It speaks volumes about the government's commitment to enhancing Canada's amateur sport both here and worldwide.