Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I am able to speak to the budget, especially after my week back in the riding of St. Paul's where it was very clear that the people of St. Paul's and indeed the people of Toronto were extremely grateful to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Finance for their leadership in what they felt they had asked for, in what they had voted for and in what had been delivered.
I would like to thank the people of St. Paul's and all other people of Canada. Everybody knows that over this past four years there had to be tough decisions. Those people have paid in ways that they felt hard. They are very relieved that the days of cuts are over.
The comments I had on the budget back in Toronto were that it was thoughtful, intelligent, practical and compassionate. It exceeded people's expectations of how well the pulse of the people had been taken.
As has been said before, it was not only a balanced budget but it was a budget that demonstrated balance in its being able to deliver new programs, debt reduction and strategic tax relief. The people felt relieved.
It was a great privilege last week to see my predecessor, John Roberts, who was ecstatic that we could actually reach a time where Jeffrey Simpsom from the Globe and Mail could actually applaud a Liberal budget. His quote was:
As a long-standing and often acerbic critic of federal budgets, let me switch gears completely. This week's budget was the best in a generation. Here's why: It got priorities roughly right. It helped redefine the proper role of government in a modern economy. It balanced revenues and expenditures. It opted for prudent forecasts. It resisted the temptation to spend gobs more money in the wrong areas—
It contained modest tax cuts. It was a balanced budget. It provided additional spending in the right places and avoidance of foolish spending. It adds up to the best budget in a generation and it sets a stage for what must come next, lower taxes and less debt.
The budget has been called an education budget. It was interesting to see the faces of our Reform colleagues at the HRDC meeting last week when Frank Graves of Echos Research came to present his data on what Canadians wanted with respect to the role of the federal government in training and education. Well over 59% of Canadians said that the federal role must be increased and 21% said that it must at least remain the same.
It was interesting that the sentinel piece of the budget is indeed the $2.5 billion millennium fund which the Prime Minister promised to Canadians. When we look around the world in the year 2000 we will see that lots of countries built buildings and great monuments to themselves. This country will be seen to have created a legacy in terms of the future of our young Canadians.
Life-long learning is indeed the future. As we see people perhaps requiring four careers in a lifetime, the ability to go to university is one of the biggest things we can give.
Last week at a skating party in St. Paul's Ken Dryden came to sign autographs and was able to talk to people about what we were raising some money for in terms of the three out of the cold programs in our riding.
Mr. Dryden actually has his own scholarship fund where every year he is able to fund six young Canadians. He chooses young Canadians from either group homes or foster homes. He says that the hardest thing is to read those 75 applications for those six precious spots and realize that every one of those extremely special young children has demonstrated with very little family support an ability to go to university. He would love all 75 of them to be able to go.
It is interesting to look at the other budget items in terms of the RESP and the Canada education savings grant, huge incentives for parents to save for their children's future education.
The tax free withdrawals for life-long learning from RRSPs is important when we realize that the most important indicator for Canadians at 30 years of age of whether or not they are working is whether or not they have been to university. It is something important for us to move forward on. The presence of the university community was felt today on Parliament Hill. University presidents are very happy with the millennium fund, a future investment in young Canadians.
Robert Pritchard from the University of Toronto, where I am on the faculty, said that we could not do a better as a country. He could not be happier for our students because this help will make all the difference in the world to them and their ability to manage the costs of higher education.
As a physician I heard clearly the member for Winnipeg North complaining about no new money for health care. I feel I should respond and say that I am very happy with the direction of the government in health care. The restoration of the CHST to $12.5 billion is exactly what the National Forum on Health asked for. The additional $134 million for the MRC, the $211 million for the HIV and aids initiative, and the $60 million for the new blood agencies are indeed new money.
The innovative tax relief evidenced in the budget in health and dental care allows self-employed people to proceed with preventive care. The caregiver tax credit is the beginning of a home care plan. Tax credits for training courses for caregivers of dependent relatives with disabilities and helping families with child care show the ongoing commitment and dedication of the government to health care.
I was happy with the 1997 budget where we began with a health transition fund of $150 million, the innovation fund of $800 and the national system on health information with $50 million. These are the building blocks to creating a sustainable health care system for the future.
I believe the percentage of GDP, which is a good marker for countries in terms of health care, is appropriate. At 9.7% for Canada it is clear that the 14.2% in the United States does not give better health care, does not give better perinatal mortality or better health in all the other markers we now have.
I am encouraged. We need principles and values. Then we can form a plan and only then can we cost it out. The health transition fund is helping us with these three conferences, the last of which concluded today on pharmacare, information structures and home care. We still do not have consensus on exactly what is the right thing to do. We cannot in any way allocate budgets until we know what we want to do.
In pharmacare there is still a debate on whether it should be a single payer or whether we should patch the holes in the patchwork quilt. In information structure we know we need an ability to be able to measure quality as we go so that we can then allocate resources appropriately.
Information technology is imperative. We are still overcoming the stumbling blocks of privacy and confidentiality. We must do those things first.
In terms of home care we need research into health care delivery and we still need to debate who is doing it.
Yesterday the minister of health eloquently articulated the principles and values and the priority of this government to maintain the confidence of Canadians in our health care system. We recognize that when medicare was designed health care was delivered in hospitals by doctors and nurses. Times have changed and we must now evaluate that delivering medically necessary services to Canadians cannot depend on the building in which the care is delivered.
We must move on to a new system so that Canadians do not lose confidence in their system. We as a government are committed to that and we will not allow the slippery slope of two tier medicine that happens when Canadians lose confidence in the system. We have to do our homework. We develop a plan and then together we can go together with the post-budget consultations and plan for the budget of 1999, the health care budget.
