Mr. Speaker, in our electoral red book, which became the action plan of the Liberal Party during the 1993 election, we proposed a holistic way to look at government.
We proposed to the Canadian people that the basis of funding services and programs has to be money, and budgetary considerations have to be paramount. At the same time, we proposed and suggested that there are social responsibilities a government cannot avoid.
We admit that previous government administrations, including Liberal governments, have built a huge debt for which we are now responsible. We have to attack that debt, reduce it, and reduce our huge deficit. At the same time, we suggested we cannot do so at the expense of the government's responsibility to look after social programs and all the various services only a government can give.
What we proposed is the formula adopted by the European community of 3 per cent of GNP after three years, the reduction of our deficit to $25 billion. As we have said, naturally this is the first phase. We will have to go farther than this. We are all conscious of that. At the same time however, we are convinced that we cannot do so at the expense of our basic fundamental responsibilities as a government.
My colleague from Vaudreuil put it very well. In all the equations, in all the formulas about deficit and debt reduction, people have to come first. People have to be the priority.
The basic argument we have with the Reform Party is not that we should attack the deficit and the debt, but how we should do it and the timeframe in which we should do it. Reform's formula is an instant formula: make the deficit disappear to zero within three years. Ours is gradual. Ours says we will reach an important target. It will take tremendous sacrifices on the part of Canadians as the budget will show next week. At the same time, we feel it is the only way to avoid the pitfall of sacrificing the services and social safety net that Canadians depend on.
I was struck by the budget presented by the Reform Party. There are all kinds of footnotes and references to economists, chambers of commerce, and institutes of actuaries in Canada. All the references, perhaps bar one, are of an economic nature. I have not seen any references to books, to social activists, to social reformists, or to community groups that might present ideas. I have not seen any references to an environmental network that might also have a say in how the affairs of a country are run. It is purely a budget relating to dollars and cents, added up and subtracted as if people do not count, as if people do not exist.
For example, there is a reference in the Reform Party's budget to the U.S. economy which has produced consistently less unemployment than Canada since the 1970s. One thing that is not pointed out which is pretty obvious to me is that the U.S. market contains a population of 260 million. It is a huge internal market whereas ours has barely 30 million people. The U.S. market and the U.S. economy are huge compared to ours, 10 times the size of ours.
At the same time the point the famous Reform budget does not make is that if the U.S. has a lower rate of unemployment, maybe it could also say that the U.S. has a lower rate of interest. What is not said is that every year, 30 million U.S. citizens go without proper health care because there is no universal health care in the United States.
We can compare countries, but if we are to make a fair comparison, we have to do it on a holistic and comprehensive basis. We do not select only the bits that are suited for our own arguments.
The Reform budget talks about Ireland and Denmark, but I noticed that it does not mention New Zealand, the latest experiment in fast track deficit and debt reduction. The New Zealanders decided that overnight Minister Douglas was going to wipe out the deficit, so they deregulated the financial markets. They cut the taxes for corporate and upper income earners by half.
New Zealanders drastically cut public services. In one day alone they closed 75 post offices because they cost too much. They significantly reduced any infrastructure dollars given to towns and municipalities for sewers, road works and other different infrastructure projects.
The result was that unemployment went from 4 per cent to 16 per cent. They went from being a very peaceful and safe society to one which is now experiencing a lot of violent crime. Poverty rates went up 40 per cent. New Zealanders now have to pay huge user fees to use medical services. They have no universal health care any more.
The amazing part is that this huge deficit reduction curve did not help. In fact it made life even more difficult and more painful.
We are saying that yes, let us reduce the deficit and the debt but let us do so progressively, responsibly and intelligently.
It strikes me that with this simplistic approach we can have a magic kingdom with this magic formula in three years according to the Reform Party. However, this magic kingdom I read about in its report is full of little conditions. I will just quote a few of them.
In social programs, the details of such longer run reforms of the social programs still have to be worked out. Yes, Reformers still have to work out the programs.
With regard to seniors and the famous tax back in old age security, the details of such a program requires further discussion with Canadians and seniors specifically. I would hope that if they have a tax back on seniors, they will discuss the details with Canadians and seniors specifically. Obviously they have not or otherwise they would not write it as such.
In regard to seniors, the Reform Party says: "We should abolish retirement at age 65". I was part of a commission when I was in the Government of Quebec. One minister at the time when I was in opposition decided overnight to lift the retirement age at age 65. I remember questioning him as to whether he had actuarial figures to show what the impact of this was going to be. I asked him if he had any studies to show what the impact was going to be on young people who would not get a chance to be employed if there was no retirement of seniors.
However, in the magic kingdom we just do this and retirement no longer happens at 65, regardless of the consequences to younger people who want to find a slot. I have a young daughter who is a teacher. In the first few years of her teaching life she cannot find a job because people do not retire at the top. However, Reform will do this and suddenly the magic has happened. Before proposing anything we have to know all our facts and figures.
On page 46 of the Reform Party's plan it says it would also investigate the possibility of equalizing UI premiums for employees and employers rather than making employers bear a
heavier payroll burden. Reformers say they will investigate and then they tell us that their figures are watertight.
Over the long term the Reform Party is investigating a number of options for the renewal of Canada's UI system. Reformers are still investigating a number of options for renewal of Canada's UI system yet they tell us with so much cockiness and assurance: "Oh yes, we are going to wipe that deficit to zero by a great magic. You can't but we can".
Reformers talk about the principles of social reform. The principles of social reform are to have families look after themselves. They want to put the accent on families. I am for that 100 per cent because I am a family man. Let us empower people in communities and I am with that too.
In the simplistic way of looking at things, once Reformers have looked after families, once they have looked after empowerment, once they decide to only take care of the needy-they do not explain who the needy are, the needy according to the Reformers, I wonder who the real needy are according to them-then everything else will take care of itself.
I will give my own personal experience. I have a retarded son. For 20 years or so, I have worked in community groups relating to the intellectually handicapped. We built schools, we built pre-schools. We started with volunteer groups trying to get out of the glue, trying to raise funds by selling bricks for schools, holding lotteries and fund raising events. Eventually it was only through government programs that we were able to set up a proper network which gave the services that eventually enabled the intellectually handicapped to find a place in the sun, to integrate into society.
Perhaps what the Reform Party does not want to accept is that we are an evolving society. Twenty or 30 years ago my son would have been kept hidden behind the bushes somewhere, but today people evolve. We have autistic children, we have severely handicapped children that go to schools because we have given them the means through expert help of finding a way to better themselves, to enhance their own personalities, their own beings.
Members of the Reform Party ignore the evolution of society. They think it is a static society. They talk about seniors as if we have a static group of seniors, whereas aging in Canada is happening at a rate which is exponential: to date something like 12 per cent of the population in some areas, and tomorrow it is going to be 18 to 20 per cent. They do not provide for that. All the figures are static. We are going to make seniors carry on, working beyond 65. We will have a tax back on old age security and somehow we are going to retrieve all this money and the $17 billion that is left we are going to distribute very evenly among all those that need it without saying how this criteria is going to be built.
They do not talk about what is happening in a society that is fast evolving with problems that are immense. We never knew Alzheimer's 20 years ago. We never knew the tremendous rate of cancer in society, of AIDS. We have all sorts of fantastic problems to face today. They are so complex and require so much money, require expert services, that private institutions cannot give them. Only government can give them because only government has that responsibility to the people who need it most. Whether we like it or not, the private world is geared to profit motives mostly.
What they do not say in their document which we say in our red book is that to all the problems of society, whether they be financial, whether they be educational, whether they be illiteracy, whether they be a social dysfunction in families, have root causes. We have to address the root causes of them.
I do not see anything in their budget that addresses the root causes. It is strictly an economic document that talks about dollars and cents, that balances columns, that adds up and subtracts and arrives at $25 billion; $15 billion that they will take out of security and social systems and $10 billion in government operations and that will cure the world.
If they say it is only the Liberals that are crazy, that do not see their great magic, I will read to them that some critics from outside feel differently. "With this $25 billion in cuts to annual federal spending the deficit indeed will soon stand at nothing. So too might the country. It is here that Reform's proposals fall short. It is one thing to present some specific solutions, which the party has done, but it is another to set out the consequences, which the party has not done". That was written by the Edmonton Journal from the province from which many of them come.
It says in the Ottawa Citizen on November 29, 1994: ``The Reform Party does not know what impact the deep spending cuts that it is proposing will have on the economy or on individuals, party finance critic Ray Speaker conceded on Monday''.
In another editorial it states: "If you picture government spending as a runaway bicycle the Reform would jam a stick in the front spokes. It gets the job done but odds are that you will not recognize the face of the nation afterwards, nor would you want to look". That is the Ottawa Citizen .
"Reform Party's Preston Manning's shrill call for absolutely no tax increase sounds simplistic and irresponsible. The Liberals seem ready to chart a realistic course of how to get out of debt city and on to recovery road. It certainly beats the Reform
Party's slash and burn shortcuts which would take Canada nowhere fast". That is from the Montreal Gazette .
Then the Calgary Herald : ``Reform, for its part, would rapidly slash federal government spending so as to create a fiscal balance while creating a huge social deficit in the form of greater unemployment and social polarization''.
I challenge Reformers to show us how they really arrive at zero deficit in three years without raising taxes. Remember, if they do not raise taxes and suddenly cut everything in sight, they arrive at zero deficit. Then in their magic kingdom, empowerment, family life, giving the community the responsibility to administer all this, suddenly everything will come right.
The amazing part is that this does not take care of fishermen out of work in Newfoundland. I see that typically all the Reform members come from western Canada. I do not know if many of them travel to Newfoundland, to Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or Quebec, or the Gaspé coast where thousands of people are out of work, where unemployment insurance is not something that people want to have because they feel good about it, but because it is needed for them to sustain a dignified living, to try to look for some other way to recycle themselves while they have no work.
Fortunately, sadly, these responsibilities cannot be passed on to somebody else. They have to be the responsibility of governments. Governments have to continue to be involved, to be responsible.
I believe that our budget approach of reducing the budget gradually to the point of 3 per cent of GNP by the next fiscal budget is a responsible approach. Then we go on to reducing it further.
In the meanwhile, the pain, the hurdles will be formidable enough as they are. Canadians are being asked to make tremendous sacrifices already. I believe their sacrifices will be worth it but certainly we should not ask them for more and the magic kingdom of the Reform is for naught.
