Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand before you to share my thoughts on the budget delivered by the Minister of Finance. You and I may share them alone, Sir; no one else is paying any attention.
Over the next few minutes I will analyse a number of different aspects of the budget. I will focus on health care and look at economic conditions and tax cuts.
Oxford County is like many other rural regions of the country. It is made up of people who work hard for a living, raise their families and try to give something back to their community. My constituents have told me in the past that they want the government to get its fiscal house in order. Each year after the budget they have said to me: “Good work, Finlay, but we need to go further and reduce the national debt”. I have received many letters over the past five and a half years from constituents who wanted a zero deficit but also wanted the essential programs protected and preserved.
At times our task seems impossible. As a new MP at the time of the 1994 budget, I looked at our previous $42 billion deficit and worried about the fiscal legacy we were about to leave our children and grandchildren. It was not a task I looked forward to. Nor, I imagine, did any member of the House at that time.
We conquered the deficit. No matter what the future holds for our Minister of Finance—some would say he has an exciting future ahead of him—he will be known as the man who led Canada away from the economic abyss to a future filled with potential for all Canadians.
The 1999 federal budget builds upon our past budgets not only in terms of tax cuts and fiscal balance but by ensuring that Canada's most important social program, health care, has been protected and preserved.
This was the message I was very happy to carry to the municipal councils in the town of Tillsonburg in Zorra township during the House recess last week. I look forward to discussing it with health care providers and hospital administrators throughout Oxford.
During the recent united alternative convention we did not hear the demagogues of the right talk about private health care although I am sure many espoused it in private. Why would they not espouse this basic tenet of Conservative philosophy? It is because they know Canadians believe that universal access to high quality, affordable health care is essential to Canada's quality of life. It is something that defines us as a nation.
Members may ask what the federal government has done to protect medicare in the budget. Through substantial funding increases and strategic investment the budget is about using the resources freed up by balancing the budget to strengthen and modernize medicare so that it can cope with emerging demands and adopt new technologies to meet the needs of Canadians.
Not only does the federal Liberal government commit a minimum increase of $11.5 billion over the next five years to the Canada health and social transfer to the provinces. It also allocates an additional $1.4 billion over the remainder of this fiscal year and the next three fiscal years to our health care system.
This funding includes the following: $328 million to improve public access to high quality health care information and to better inform Canadians about the performance of their health care system, consistent with the social union framework agreed to by all the provinces; $240 million to support the development of the Canadian Institute of Health Research; $150 million in additional funding for health related research for the advanced research granting councils, the National Research Council and Health Canada; an additional $200 million for the Canada Foundation for Innovation; $190 million to better meet the health needs of first nations and Inuit communities; and $287 million to improve prenatal nutrition, food safety, toxic substances control, to foster innovation in rural and community health, and to combat diabetes.
I am proud to call the 1999 federal budget a health care budget. It was accomplished through the sacrifice of Canadians from coast to coast and it builds upon the success of the government's deficit fighting efforts.
I can look my constituents in the eye and tell them that our most essential social program has been strengthened and preserved for our collective future. I only hope that the provincial Tory government in Ontario will ensure that rural regions like Oxford see the full benefits of this funding increase through improved service and quality of care.
The budget is about more than health care. It is also a record of achievement which seeks to build a better economy for Canadians. When the government took office, the national deficit stood at an all time high of $42 billion. No federal government, either Liberal or Conservative, had delivered a balanced budget in almost a generation.
Tough fiscal medicine, economic growth and job creation have combined to eliminate the deficit and give Canadians a balanced or a better budget for two years in a row. This is significant because it is the first time since the government of Louis St. Laurent that the federal government has been deficit free for two consecutive years.
As the minister pointed out in his speech, the government is committed to further balanced budgets or better in 1999-2000 and 2000-01. This will make only the third time since Confederation that the Government of Canada has recorded four consecutive balanced budgets. It is a legacy I am very happy to hand over to my children and grandchildren.
Balanced budgets have provided room for the government to provide tax cuts to Canadians. We recognize that tax relief and tax fairness are essential to improving the Canadian standard of living. As I have said before, we can only provide tax cuts that we can afford and that are sustainable. It makes no sense to provide tax cuts one year and then revoke them the next, or to butcher a program as Reform proposes every time the economy goes into a tailspin. Our approach is balanced. It is moderate and it is sustainable.
Let me quickly summarize the tax cuts in the budget. The basic personal exemption will be increased by $175 to a total of $675. This extends to all taxpayers along with last year's increase of $500 to low income Canadians. As of July 1 the 3% surtax on personal income will be eliminated for all Canadians.
What does this mean to average Canadian taxpayers? It means that single taxpayers earning $20,000 or less will see their taxes reduced by at least 10%. Typical one earner families with two children and incomes of $30,000 or less will pay no net federal income tax. Families with incomes of $45,000 or less will have their taxes reduced by a minimum of 10%. Every Canadian can look forward to a tax cut and 600,000 lower income Canadians will no longer pay any federal income tax at all. That is an increase of 200,000 over last year.
Farmers across Canada were also happy to see in the budget the federal commitment to producers suffering from the income crisis they faced this past year. The federal government in the budget committed to paying 100% of the cost of the agriculture income disaster assistance program in the first year, up to $600 million. The provinces will fund the major part of the program in the second year, resulting in a 60:40 cost sharing ratio over the two years.
I assure the House that there are many farmers in Oxford County waiting anxiously for this assistance. It is heartening to see that the government has found a way to furnish assistance and to seek out the funding necessary to provide an essential part of our economy when it is needed. It is also encouraging to see that all the provinces but one have co-operated, and we hope that one will be onboard before too long. Some economic turmoil cannot be forecast but the government has proven that it can react proactively to ensure those affected suffer as little as possible.
There is much more about the budget that I applaud like the funding for innovation and research, but I will now close with some words from my favourite playwright, William Shakespeare. In the last scene of As You Like It the Duke says:
—let us do those ends That here were well begone and well begot: And after, every of this happy number That have endured shrewd days and nights with us Shall share the good of our returned fortune
In 10 months we will enter a new millennium. Canada is ready to—
