Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to participate in the debate on Bill C-3. My sense of the bill is that it has assisted the provinces of Canada in stabilizing their budgetary plans over the next five years. I have an attraction toward supporting the bill, in particular as it applies not to just to all of our country but as it applies to Saskatchewan where I come from.
What has happened in Saskatchewan over the past 10 or 12 years is nothing short of a disaster. I will go back a bit to describe what Saskatchewan was like between 1971 and 1982. At that time Saskatchewan was governed by a New Democratic Party government led by Premier Allan Blakeney. The NDP was the only government of the day in Canada that had 11 consecutive balanced budgets. These balanced budgets were not done for the sake of balancing the budget, but they were the result of good planning on behalf of the premier, the cabinet and the
government and ensuring that the priorities of the people came first.
In spite of the balanced budget the province of Saskatchewan had the lowest overall tax rate in the country. Saskatchewan had hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues from the resource industries. We had the only children's dental program for children 18 years of age and under in the entire world. We had a prescription drug plan for all of our citizens.
We had a very significant initiative not only in health care but in the economic sector as well. People were working. The farm economy was well attracted to the government in terms of the type of agricultural programs we undertook. We pioneered agricultural programs such as land bank and farm start which encouraged young people to stay on the farm and get into the farming sector.
After 11 years we basically came out of the 1970s to 1982 not only with 11 balanced budgets, our people working and good social programs for the population, but also with a heritage fund of about a billion dollars. Our final budget in 1981-82 provided a surplus of $139 million on the operations side.
In 1982 an event took place in Saskatchewan which to this day and for probably a generation or two will be remembered. That is the date of the election, April 26, 1982, when Grant Devine and the Conservative government came to power. They had won the election on the basis that they were a Conservative government, that they were fiscally responsible and that they were going to do all these great things for the province of Saskatchewan.
They had 10 consecutive deficit budgets in their nine years of power. They went from a $139 million surplus on the operations side to $8 billion in debt. We went from a $3 billion crown corporation capital debt in 1982, which was a self-liquidating debt like a mortgage on a house, to after nine years of Grant Devine and the Conservative government ruling the province, to a crown corporation capital debt of not $3 billion but over $8 billion coupled with the significant problem of having all of our profitable crown corporations privatized. There were no revenues to pay off this $8 billion capital debt.
In 1991 the people of Saskatchewan had enough. They defeated the Conservative government and elected another NDP government. We are not just faced with this massive $16 billion debt for less than a million population. We are also faced with a savage attack by the national government in terms of reduction in equalization payments. As a result of Mr. Mulroney and the former Conservative government we have lost on average about $252 million a year in equalization payments. That was the punishment Saskatchewan received even though we had a like-minded Conservative government at the provincial level. That was the reward. It was more of a punishment than a reward.
This shows very clearly that Saskatchewan had the ability to run its own finances, to introduce progressive social programs, to produce jobs for its people. When it had a plan in place under the NDP we progressed from that to where we became basically almost a bankrupt province in 1991. Part of that was because of the established programs financing and other equalization programs that were cut back. The majority of it obviously was because of the Grant Devine government.
The point I want to make with respect to Bill C-3 this evening is that this bill addresses some of the hardship under the former government in the sense that it re-establishes some of that lost revenue on an annual basis. It does not make up all of it, but establishes an upward trend to providing us with more of our fair share in more ways than one.
The other reason we had big deficits in terms of losing our equalization payments in the 1980s was because the equalization formula that was negotiated with the former governments, two Tory governments provincial-federal negotiating in the 1980s, took away the ability of the province to raise revenue through resource taxation. The way it punished Saskatchewan was that for every dollar we raised in terms of additional resource revenue we would have the equalization payments reduced dollar for dollar.
In the event where prices for potash and oil increased as a result of world prices, our price sensitive royalties would gather more revenues to the province, but we would lose for every dollar we gained on the equalization payments from the federal government. It was really a catch 22. We were handcuffed as a province in terms of managing our own finances.
I am pleased to see in the bill some progress toward taking the handcuffs off. It has not resolved all of the things we would like to see in Saskatchewan, but what has been resolved is this very distressing problem with respect to resource taxation. It has provided a change in the equalization formula which will address the problem known as a tax back in determining equalization entitlements for Saskatchewan and I understand for Newfoundland and Nova Scotia as well. Saskatchewan will receive some long-term benefits.
There will still be a very light handcuff on the Government of Saskatchewan to increase its revenues with respect to resources and not be affected with respect to equalization, but the good news is there is an about face in terms of the total disregard for provincial autonomy when it comes to resources and this bill is a positive move in that step. That is one of the reasons I support it.
As important I believe is that governments must have a plan. It is not good enough to come to this Parliament on a daily basis and have an agenda for today. What is important is that we as the Government of Canada and the provincial governments have a long-term plan-a medium term plan, a daily plan, a weekly plan-some idea as to where they are going in the next five years.
Under the Romanow government since 1991 they have put together a five-year plan which will provide a balanced budget for the first time since 1982 in the 1995-96 fiscal year. We are very proud of that in Saskatchewan. It has been very difficult. It has not come without a great deal of sacrifice, an increase in taxes and reducing some of the benefits. Our options were very limited.
Bill C-3 in my view is a good move. I do not think it is going far enough for the province of Saskatchewan, but I am satisfied that it is a step in the right direction. As a result in principle I do support the bill.
