Ed Harper

[Pearson International Airport, May 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Pearson airport, the current hub of Canada's transportation system, is falling behind the competition in its bid to become North America's gateway to the world. Partisan politics is obscuring the main task at hand. Pearson must prepare for the 21st century and increase its capacity.

Ninety-seven Liberal MPs represent Ontario in the current government; 97 MPs whose constituents would benefit from Pearson emerging as a viable force on the international scene. Yet no solution to the current log jam is in sight.

Why is the government delaying the inevitable? Let us hold an impartial judicial inquiry into the contracting process with a specific deadline. If evidence of wrongdoing is found let us move to punish those responsible. If no evidence of wrongdoing is found let us renew, renegotiate or re-tender the contract.

This is no rocket science but the old saying about safety in numbers obviously does not apply to Ontario's voice in Ottawa.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

Tell the whole story, do not just give little quotes.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

What about the GST?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

Tell us about the pension plan.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

You have to pay the price. You have to show leadership by example. It was not there, so the budget started off on a very bad note. They just blew all credibility.

Let us talk about the budget. In 1997 the debt will be $650 billion. That is the bottom line. That is an accomplishment? That is reality. That is a fact. Interest rates on it amount to $55 billion to $60 billion. That is reality. That is a fact. We will still be overspending by $25 billion. That is reality. That is an accomplishment? It is a disaster we are going to have to face and deal with.

The IMF brought out a study this week on growth and the world economy. It showed Canada's growth at 4.3 per cent in 1995 and 2.6 per cent in 1996. Bad news is coming. Are we prepared for it? I suggest not. Just below the growth in the world economy is how Canada's debt stacks up. It is compared to our other trading partners. Canada is the absolute worst and worsening.

Canada has the distinction of being the world's largest offshore debtor. That debt has increased. During the last year the offshore debt has gone from $319 billion to $341 billion. Twenty-eight billion dollars in interest payments flow out of Canada to those countries that have been supporting our lavish lifestyle. It does not do a thing for the economy. We are not in control of our own destiny. That control is in the hands of the people who have been supporting that lavish lifestyle we have been enjoying while we lived beyond our means.

What will be the future costs of the Moody's downgrade? As I suggested at the beginning, it is going to be in the area of millions if not billions of dollars. We cannot say we were not warned. We got a warning shot before the budget. Moody's said: "Your 3 per cent target is far too low and we want you to give us a date when you are going to get to zero". Rolling two-year targets are laughable.

I can see myself going to my bank manager and saying: "I know I am in debt, but will you keep lending me money if I give you a rolling two-year target?" He would throw me out of his office after he had a fit of hysterics.

Several clouds are on the horizon that are not faced in the budget and of course there is what can happen in the United States.

I will close by saying that the situation prompts me to recall buying my first home. The neighbour next door had all the trappings, lovely furnishings. I thought he must be making a lot of money. Reality was the creditors moving in and closing him down because he was doing it with his credit card. That is what we are doing and it could hurt our future generations.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

The government realized the infrastructure program was not good. It has now been extended supposedly because the municipalities have been asking for it, but that was not stated in the budget.

Unbelievably we reduced tobacco taxes that first year. Here we are with our backs to the wall, in debt up to our eyeballs and we gave away what was admitted at the time to be about $300 million. The government did not understand the seriousness of the problem. We gave away $300 million. That does not even begin to touch the health costs implicit in encouraging people to start smoking again by reducing the taxes.

However it was not $300 million. It cost the Canadian taxpayers $850 million in an attempt to drive the bad guys away. "We are only going to do this until the bad guys disappear, then we are going to put the tax back". The Liberals were dreaming in technicolour at a time when they should not have been dreaming, they should have been facing reality.

The last thing we were involved in thanks to this government was the Pearson mess. We are still debating whether it is a Liberal scandal or a Tory scandal. While we are doing that the airport is deteriorating. The jobs that could have been created there have not been created. In the long term it will cost jobs across Canada. That is all because of the government failing to face reality and take action.

The other comment I wanted to address at the beginning was: "We did not do this; we just took over. It was the Conservatives that started all this. They did not address the deficit". The present government was in opposition. I cannot recall a great deal of emphasis from them in those years to cut spending. As a matter of fact, I detected the exact opposite. Whenever the Conservative government, realizing the magnitude of the problem, tried to do something about it like revising the UI program, the howls of indignation from the Liberals were unbelievable.

It is a little hypocritical to sit over there and say: "It is not us. We did not cause the deficit." They sure did not help by supporting the cuts the Tories were trying to make. Not to mention the government was in place when we started this slide down the debt hole. When the Liberals were defeated in 1984 the debt at that point was just under $200 billion and all Conservative efforts to reduce it failed miserably because they were not getting the support they needed from the opposition.

Now we come to the budget. A year ago it was: "Don't worry, be happy". Now Canadians are being told: "It is a serious situation. It is life threatening. We have to do something about it. We have to cut spending". They blew it big time. The one thing the Liberals had to do was show leadership by example. They had to address our gold plated MP pension plan and they did not do it. They blew big time any credibility they had with the Canadian people in that budget.

It is interesting the MP pension cuts were not in the budget. I am sure the finance minister looked at that program and said: "Forget it. It would be a disaster in my budget".

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, it gives me pleasure to rise today to speak against Bill C-76, the budget implementation act.

I would like to make a couple of comments before I get into my presentation. I just cannot help but do this.

I was interested when the government whip in his presentation was making all those quotes about what people said about this magnificent government budget. One quote that he apparently forgot was the very important quote from Moody's. The quote from Moody's of course was: "This budget is too little, too late, and unrealistic." It is going to cost all Canadian taxpayers millions if not billions of dollars because Moody's did give that verdict on the budget.

I was also interested in the survey results just quoted by the member for Victoria-Haliburton, where his constituents said that they supported the budget, that they supported the cuts. They want cuts. The very next question was that the cuts did not go far enough. That is what his people responded to, and that is what the Canadian people are saying in responding to the budget. It made some cuts. They were not deep enough. They did not go far enough.

I guess it is appropriate to be talking about the budget today because today marks a milestone. The debt passed $550 billion today, not a milestone we can be very proud of. In fact we should all be ashamed of it.

The word guts is not a word I use, but it was used by the Prime Minister the other day in responding to a question in this House. I am going to use it today in suggesting that this budget lacked guts. It did not do the things that have to be done. The courage was not there to do it. What is more, the budget lacked vision.

We have wasted a year and a half. We had our first budget and now we have come up with the second stage of a two-part budget that does nothing to address the most serious problem we have in this country. In that wasted year and a half, what has happened to the debt? The debt has gone from $490 billion to just over $550 billion. Is that an accomplishment? I do not think so.

The message a year ago in the budget was don't worry, be happy. Because of that, we are $60 billion deeper in debt. Think about that first budget. It did not help the situation; it aggravated it. It brought out the much heralded infrastructure program: $6 billion to buy your way to prosperity. It is the old shell game. Two for one. What a deal. "We will give you one, and you get two for one". The same taxpayer is being bribed with his own money.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

I wonder about that.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

And he failed.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

We are right and they are wrong.