Mr. Speaker, yes it is the intention of the Reform Party to share time during this debate.
Given the financial situation facing our country today, it is not appropriate for anyone in the House to use the debt crisis for partisan political purposes. We should really be taking a much more bipartisan view of this whole thing and saying that if we were being attacked by a third party, what we would we do as a nation. How would we respond if, rather than the incredible debt we have facing us, it was a third country. What would we do? Would we run off into our separate little factions and think that we each have the best idea? Or would we come together and say that we have a genuine problem here, folks? How would we go
about solving it? That is the approach Parliament has to take. That is the vision many Canadians have of the 35th Parliament.
If we are going to cut into corners of partisan bickering over questions which impact the country, whether we are members of a federalist group or members who have the intention of taking Quebec out of Canada, we have a common problem. If we approach this problem from the perspective of not in my backyard, the nimby process, we will never achieve it.
If I see a disappointment in this Parliament, it is that the representatives of the Bloc never seem to look at Canada as a whole. Whether it likes it or not, it is part of Canada. The Bloc and Quebec are part of Canada today. If that changes in the future, which I hope it does not, we will deal with it in the future.
However today we have a common problem, the incredible debt we have facing us as a nation. We cannot look at every line and say we were not treated fairly and moan and bitch and cry about it. We have to look at the nation's problems as a whole.
The government did two things right in the budget presented the other day. The first is the defence cuts. This was a difficult project for the Liberals as many of the cuts were in Liberal country. They are cuts which should have been made long ago and are now finally being done. All parts of the country suffered from the defence cuts, including Quebec but to a lesser degree than other parts.
Another good move in the budget was the planned cuts to UI payroll taxes. It might have been a far better move not to put the tax on payrolls in the first place. In any event, the government has seen the folly of increasing payroll taxes which is really a tax on jobs and does nothing to create employment.
There is no doubt our country is at risk because of our chronic overspending. I am sure everyone in this House agrees our generation is living beyond its means. It has been doing so for the last 20 years and is doing so at the expense of future generations. What can we do about it? We can deal with the problem as it is and not as we would wish it to be. We have to be honest about it.
In this budget the Minister of Finance talked about removing $5 of spending for every $1 of increased revenue. When you front end load spending so that it is not recurring spending and then say it is being taken out of the budget thus reducing spending, that really is a smoke and mirrors trick. All that does is feed the already existing cynicism in Canada toward all government institutions. We have to be honest about things and deal with them as they are. Unfortunately, the quicksand of wishful thinking is the reason we find ourselves in this mess in the first place.
As I mentioned earlier we have endured about 20 years of chronic overspending by governments of all stripes in this House and in every House across the nation. This House, this government and this budget are no different from us personally, from most businesses and most other governments when revenue is chronically overestimated and expenditures are chronically underestimated. That is the Achilles' heel of this budget and the one parliamentarians should be most concerned about.
This budget calls for an increase in revenues of approximately 15 per cent over the next two years. This comes after a decline in revenues of 5.6 per cent this year over last. At the same time the budget calls for an increase in expenditures of about .3 per cent. It is going to be particularly difficult to restrain the growth in spending, particularly if there is any negative change in the cost of money. If interest rates go up there is nothing the government can do about it and it will cost a fortune and will blow everything out of the water.
I fear that we have déjà vu all over again. Sooner or later we are going to have to deal with the problem of chronic overspending. We are going to have to deal with the problems as they are and not as we would wish them to be.
To be fair, this government has done a much better job than the previous government did in being realistic. However the government should carefully consider suggestions coming from this side of the House and the government side to actually start reducing and cutting programs.
Put sunset clauses into programs. Rather than talking about reducing the increase in the amount of planned spending and calling that a reduction in spending, actually look at last year's bottom line and say that less will be spent next year. Maybe we should consider some sort of zero based budgeting so that all departments have to justify what they are doing every year, just like a business would have to do it.
We must live within our means. Canadians must make the distinction between their wants and needs. We can afford our needs but we cannot afford everything we want.
As an example the International Centre for Human Rights, commonly known as the Broadbent centre, has sucked up millions of dollars since its inception around five years ago. What value has that centre given or brought to Canadians that could not have been done by another already existing department, other than providing Mr. Broadbent with something to do?
At the same time we have frozen the salaries of civil servants regardless of their income. Not all civil servants live like kings. Gilles Éthier is the maintenance worker who looks after my office in the West Block. I asked him what he thought of this
salary freeze. I asked him if I could raise this and talk about it in the House today.
Here is a real live person whom we see every day around this House. He makes about $24,000 a year. Ladies and gentlemen in Edmonton, with the expense of living in Ottawa $24,000 a year is not a whole lot of money. His salary has been frozen for two years and will now be frozen for another two years. How is it that we have $22 million or thereabouts to spend on the Ed Broadbent centre and at the same time we freeze the income of people at the bottom end of the income scale?
If Mr. Broadbent were standing right here in my shoes today speaking to this issue he would probably ask the same question. In all those years as the leader of the New Democratic Party did he not champion the little guy? How is it now that the little guy finds himself paying the salary of the big guy? No wonder so many Canadians are wondering who is in charge and what end is up. We need to do a line by line review of the actual spending in all departments and ask: Is or is this not necessary? If it is not necessary we must cut it.
How is it that Canadians in a lower income bracket whether through unemployment insurance premiums or whatever end up subsidizing people who earn dramatically more? I am talking about seasonal workers who might make $50,000 in a season but get unemployment insurance for four or five months of the year, while someone working for $18,000 or $23,000 annually pays unemployment insurance all year long and ends up subsidizing the person making twice as much. These are the things our Parliament has to look into so that we end up having equity and fairness. Then people will not feel as if they are being ripped off by the system.
It is time our government set goals and priorities for what we can afford and what we want. There must be more in it for people as individuals to contribute to society rather than to take from it. We should use this as a bottom line as the foundation of everything we do when we talk about income support and that sort of thing. We must become a people who think in terms of our responsibility to our country rather than our entitlements from the country.
Finally for the sake of our children, let us be the Parliament that finally takes responsibility for our spending and finally gets the country on the right track. If this government fails in its responsibility to Canadians to be stewards of the nation, then it will surely reap the same bitter harvest that befell the previous government which also had a mandate to deal with the problem, but neither had the vision nor the guts to do the job.
