Audrey McLaughlin

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

There are many things that the government can do in this budget. We all must be cognizant of the reduction of expenditures. When it comes to following the Auditor General's report, I hope this government will do better than the previous one which seemed to simply ignore it. I urge the government to look at the recommendations in this report. They are very clear and can be acted upon now without further major study.

We must look at expenditures. We have to be prudent in our expenditures. However, we must also balance that in a fair and equitable way for all Canadians. This government has an opportunity in this budget to lead a new way, not simply to follow the regressive ways of the previous government. I urge it to do so to give Canadians hope and to get Canadians back to work.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

I therefore want to urge the government to implement programs that will be an investment in our future such as research and development, the education of our young people, retraining for those who are displaced in the work place.

I would also say that we in our own job creation plan have supported an infrastructure program and think it is very important but there are two kinds of infrastructure. There is the physical infrastructure of highways, roads, municipal services and information technology, and there is also the social infrastructure. If we ignore the fact that the social infrastructure is a part of our economic system we will have missed the point.

I urge the government to ensure that the social infrastructure of education and health care is maintained at a level which will be important for our country. On that point, I would like to specifically mention the need to go forward once and for all with a national child care program so that parents can work and the children will have an opportunity for the responsible care that is in the interest of our future citizens.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

At the same time after the Liberal government embraced the policies of the previous Conservative government in terms of trade and monetary policy, I want to remind the government that one of the things that lead again to increasing debt and deficit was the implementation of the goods and

services tax at a time when we saw decreasing revenues from employment and high interest rates devastating the agricultural sectors, small business and on top of that they got the GST.

We in this party have fought long and hard for tax fairness. We believe that the goods and services tax is certainly a tax measure which has not only not worked but has increased the economic recession that we are in at this time.

Finally, on the whole issue of employment, without an employment strategy, without a clear industrial strategy we will never deal with the structural problems of debt and deficit. The fact that we see decreasing revenues is directly related to increasing unemployment statistics. Every unemployed person in this country costs the federal revenue $17,500 a year. If you take 1.5 million people unemployed that is something like $26 or $27 billion a year that we are losing in revenue because of unemployment.

It is time for parliamentarians and this government to say that Canada cannot afford unemployment. That is what we cannot afford. The social and human costs are far too great and the economic costs are devastating this country.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

On the debt and deficit question I think we must take a minute to look at how we got in this mess in the first place. As was said, we are doomed to repeat history if we do not pay attention to what has happened. It is true that in the 1970s many of the tax measures of the previous Liberal government did begin to create the inequities that we see and lead to this gap which meant that we began seeing an ever increasing debt.

In the following years subsequent governments and the previous government over the last nine years implemented monetary policies which dealt only with controlling inflation, ignoring the effect on rising unemployment.

They brought in a North American free trade deal and the free trade agreement with the United States which cost Canadians hundreds of thousands of jobs leading again to decreased revenues.

Look at the monetary policy of the past government, the effect of bad trade deals on employment and decreased generation of revenue. It was disappointing that the Liberal government decided once coming into power that it would continue those two regressive monetary and trade solutions.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

Certainly the area of tax expenditure that is not helping the majority of Canadians is that we should reduce the upper limits on the RRSP contributions. We feel the RRSP program is important but if we reduce the upper limitations which right now are basically directed to those making $90,000 a year we would bring more fairness into that particular area.

A minimum corporate tax is absolutely essential. We still have over 63,000 profitable corporations not paying one cent of tax. We cannot ask individuals to do more and continue to allow those profit making corporations to do nothing.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

There are other such things that the government can do in terms of the family trusts, those trusts that allow the rich to shelter their income from the tax revenues. Clearly a fair tax system does not allow this.

I must say in the last Parliament the members opposite in the Liberal government were not outspoken against the previous government's attempts and legislation to even extend the period of time that these family trusts would be exempt from taxes.

I challenge the Minister of Finance to show a new path and to show that we are really prepared to deal with this element of tax fairness.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in this very important debate today. I have over the past couple of years had a number of meetings with my constituents in the Yukon during which we have discussed details of a budget and what kind of society and what kind of Canada we want to live in.

I want to make the point at the outset that a budget is more than simply figures. It indicates whether we will have the hallmarks of prosperity or whether we will have the seeds of economic stagnation.

I have been here for pretty well all of the debate today and I remind members of this House that I have not heard anyone refer to the fact that we have to look at this budget in terms of being able to accomplish the tasks that are outstanding in Canada as well.

Regarding the resolution this House took unanimously in 1989 to eliminate poverty by the year 2000, I hope the House will rededicate itself to that goal and this budget will be the beginning of that. Also, to accomplish the goals to which we as Canadians and the New Democratic Party are committed which are to ensure that Canada's First Nations are truly and fairly dealt with and that there is funding available because it does cost money to complete the very important land claims and self-government negotiations which must take place in this country.

On the specific areas of the budget there are three that I want to briefly touch on in the time that I have; namely, taxation, debt and deficit and employment creation.

The first is a fair taxation system. The middle class is overburdened. We certainly do not need to see a whole raft of new taxes to cause further cynicism in our population about our tax system. To deal with that cynicism we also have to deal with the inequities and the fact that individual Canadians are now paying a far greater proportion of the tax revenue than corporations and that many wealthy individuals have the opportunity to avoid paying taxes.

We urge the Minister of Finance to bring in a fair and equitable tax system. I want to give several examples of how that could be done. The first is in terms of closing costly tax loopholes and making the system fair.

The government can look at such things as the business entertainment deduction which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to Canadian taxpayers. While some people cannot even afford a lunch, I am not sure that people should be privileged to be deducting their high cost lunches at taxpayers expense.

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for London-Middlesex on his remarks, particularly to show this House that perhaps we are not going to hear the nonsense and clap-trap of the previous government about a jobless recovery because there is no recovery unless there are jobs for people and unless we can really have people back working again. I congratulate him on addressing that very profound question of jobs in our community and in our country.

Would the member go beyond just simply saying that we do need jobs and really put that into action by having his government put forward specific targets for the reduction of unemployment which we could debate in this House? I would like to see this.

I would like to know the member's reaction to having the government come forward and being accountable to the people by saying: "Here is our target not just for the reduction of the deficit"-and I agree the deficit is a problem-"but here is our target to reduce unemployment. We are going to put it before the House, we are going to defend that target and we are going to have a debate on it". Does the hon. member think that would be a useful thing for his government to do?

[Pre-Budget Consultations, February 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Mississauga South on his first speech in this House. He made some extremely good points.

However, I would like to ask him a few questions on tax policy. He mentioned at the beginning of his remarks that he felt that there should be no new taxes. I certainly concur that the middle class and individuals are just totally overburdened on taxes. He concluded his speech by talking about fairness.

I would like to ask the member for Mississauga South if his comments at the beginning of his remarks would include the fact that there should be no consideration in this budget of taxing those profitable corporations that now pay no tax. Last year the Auditor General told us that there are millions of dollars in uncollected taxes because of the provision for profits to be put offshore and therefore not taxed in Canada. We know that the family trusts, where the rich can shelter their money, are not taxed.

I would like to ask the member, when he talks about no taxes, is he talking about allowing these tax loopholes for the rich and for profitable corporations to continue or does he really want to see a fair tax system so that the individual taxpayer gets less burden when everyone is paying their fair share?

[Tobacco Products, February 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the Liberal Party will want to clap just as hard after I have asked my question.

My question is for the Minister of Health. The minister responded earlier to a question by saying that she had the health of Canadians at heart, and I believe her.

Given that tobacco use costs Canadians and the health care system directly and indirectly over $15 billion a year and costs the lives of some 37,000 Canadians, will the Minister of Health state in the House today, directly to Canadians, whether she is against lowering the taxes on tobacco products or whether she is for it?

If she is for lowering taxes, will she indicate how her government will compensate provincial governments whose health care costs will clearly rise?