Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise and contribute to the debate on the third reading of Bill C-38, the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act.
Bill C-38 would implement the measures announced in the March budget speech. My comments this afternoon will focus on several of the themes contained in that budget, and those are the need to return to fiscal discipline, reduce the size and cost of government, reduce deficits and eventually pay off the Canadian debt which is in excess of $590 billion and counting.
Certainly the Canadian economy is the envy of the industrialized world, with healthy job growth, a manageable rate of unemployment and comparatively low levels of debt. However, this is not to state that Canadians can be complacent about either our debt or our economy. The recovery is fragile and the situation in Europe is even more so.
As countries in Europe, specifically Greece, Spain, Italy and even Great Britain, have demonstrated, growth in public sector spending in excess of growth of the economy cannot continue forever. High deficits will inevitably lead to higher interest rates and exchange rates, capital leaving the country and higher taxes in the future.
High debt mortgages our country's future and imposes higher taxes on future generations that are forced to pay for the current borrowing. This is the ultimate violation of the principle of no taxation without representation.
I forgot to mention at the outset, Mr. Speaker, that I will be sharing my time with the member for Mississauga—Streetsville.
Several months ago, I attended a conference in Ottawa put on by the Manning Institute, Preston Manning's Conservative think tank. The Manning Centre has published credible research indicating that a vast majority of Canadians are becoming less dependent on government. In fact, 66% of Canadians expect less of their government, except in core areas of government services such as in public safety. Canadians are increasingly becoming more reliant on themselves, their families and volunteer organizations such as churches and as a result they are becoming less reliant on government.
Sadly, part of this is due to Canadians' perception of government's inability to actually solve any of their problems. As Ronald Reagan famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Regardless, I believe that self-reliance is a positive trend.
Stimulus spending notwithstanding, the cost and size of the federal government is bloated and I would suggest bloated unnecessarily. Between 1999 and 2009, the Canadian population increased by 11%, but the federal government's civilian workforce grew by 35%. Meanwhile, public-sector compensation grew by 59% as compared to only 30% in the private sector. Canada is fortunate to have an outstanding civil service. However, if balanced budgets are to be achieved, all sustainable trends must be addressed.
Any business which has experienced human resource shortages in its own business, and we have a lot of them in Alberta, knows all too well the competition from the public sector, with attractive wages, benefits and pensions, adds to the difficulties a private business has in attracting and retaining qualified labour. We simply cannot continue to grow government in the way that we have been.
I will talk about some specific areas where the federal government must engage in cost containment to avoid a system that becomes so expensive that it will eventually collapse under its own weight. These costs would be contained by measures taken in Bill C-38.
The first is the old age security system. The old age security system is funded through tax revenues and is premised on there being enough taxpayers to support retirees. However, by 2030, the number of Canadians over the age of 65 will increase from today's 4.7 million to 9.3 million. Two demographic trends that exacerbate the issue are that Canadians are living longer and our fertility rates have steadily been declining. When OAS was first introduced, life expectancy for Canadians was 71. Today it is 82. Consequently, the cost of OAS will increase from $36 billion per year in 2010 to $108 billion by 2030. Meanwhile, by that same year, the ratio of taxpayer to retiree will be 2:1, down from its current 4:1. This trend is clearly unsustainable and must be addressed now in order to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the entire system.
Second, Canada must seriously look at many of its social safety net mechanisms, given their increased cost and ultimate unaffordability. In my view, no problem is more troubling than our current system of employment insurance.
In Alberta and Saskatchewan employers cannot fill tens of thousands of high-paying jobs and are often forced to seek expensive temporary foreign workers to fill everything from skilled jobs in the construction and pipeline industries to service jobs in the hospitality and restaurant industries.
However, in other parts of the country hundreds and thousands of Canadians are collecting employment insurance, many for parts of the year, every year, for decades. In fact, employment insurance, by its very design, incents unemployed workers to do just that: to go on and off employment insurance rather than seek out stable employment elsewhere.
In the areas of the country with the highest unemployment, the qualifying period for employment insurance is the lowest. This, in my view, represents one of the worst failures of the modern welfare state. In an attempt to reduce income equality and regional disparity, the government has actually created a system which discourages human resources for moving to parts of the economy that are operating more efficiently.
Those who can work should work. Bill C-38 makes it clear that unemployed Canadians are expected to find a job when and where it is reasonable to do so. Safety net programs such as EI were designed as temporary insulators from unemployment, not as a substitute for employment. Dignity is enhanced not diminished when reliance on EI is replaced by gainful employment.
I just want to mention a word about environmental protection because much misinformation has been proferred concerning the government's concern or alleged lack of concern for environmental protection.
Clearly, Canadians deserve the cleanest air, water and environment possible. However, Canadians also value jobs and a functioning economy. In fact, over the next 10 years, more than 500 proposed new projects, representing potentially $500 billion in new investment, will be under consideration in Canada.
Currently, developers undertaking major projects must navigate a complex often repetitive maze of regulatory requirements and processes. However, by providing predictable timelines for project approval, Bill C-38 would streamline and rationalize the environmental approval process. This is key. Canadians should not confuse quantity and length of the environmental approval process with a quality environmental approval process. Bill C-38 would prevent long delays that kill potential jobs, investment and stall economic growth for projects that would not have any negative environmental impact.
Bill C-38 fulfills the government's commitment to practise fiscal discipline and return to balanced budgets. Although short-term debt is tolerable and sometimes even necessary, excessive long-term debt is incompatible with long-term economic growth.
Currently, $30.9 billion, almost $31 billion, or 11¢ of every tax dollar, is paid on public debt charges, otherwise known as interest. Accordingly if we had no public debt, and therefore no interest charges, we would be running essentially balanced if not surplus budgets. Alternatively, for those members how are interested in program spending or social engineering, had there been no public debt, there would be an additional $31 billion available for spending on whatever programs are important to them.
Government cannot, in the long term, sustain economic growth through public spending. Canadians spending left unchecked has not led to economic growth anywhere. It is quite the opposite. Extreme public debt has led to crises in Greece, Italy and Portugal, economic downturn and political deadlock in the United States and extreme austerity measures in Great Britain.
However, some Canadians believe that we are somehow immune from such basic economic realities. Worse, there appears to be a real disconnect between government and the taxpayers who we represent.
Fiscal Conservatives understand that the government has no money except for that which it taxes from its citizens and corporations. Fiscal spendthrifts erroneously believe that the government magically like fairy dust has resources of its own and therefore can generously spend on all projects and all programs without consequence. Government does not create wealth. It merely redistributes wealth. It only spends resources taken out of the private economy.
Government programs and Public Works can and do sustain demand in the short term, but they also monopolize available resources, taking them away from private business and resulting in the eventual slowdown of our economy. Accordingly the best long-term economic stimulus is for government to reduce its spending, pay down its debt and let resources be allocated in a sustainable method through private investment.
The great Margaret Thatcher once said, “And, you know, there is no such thing as a society“. She went on to say:
There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour...people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation...
The next time a member of Parliament asks if a certain program or project is a necessity and affordable, we should ask two questions: Who is entitled? Who has the obligation to pay? We will soon learn that the answer is one and the same.
