Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased this evening to be here to be debate Bill C-60, the government's omnibus budget bill. It is another omnibus bill, unfortunately, and it is too bad we do not have the committee time allocated to deal with so many hundreds of different measures that I think are deserving of greater scrutiny, but that is just the way it has been for the last several years with this particular regime.
Budgets are about making choices. They are about collecting hard-earned tax dollars, and they are about spending those tax dollars by informing that spending with the priorities of a particular government.
It is unfair for any party to say that it does not support at least some measures in a particular budget. Let me say from the beginning that there are measures in Bill C-60 that we do support, measures such as improving the war veterans allowance; expanding the adoption expense tax credit; combatting tax evasion; extending the accelerated CCA, the capital cost allowance, on manufacturing equipment; and many others. It is not a question of indicting the entire budget. However, taking the budget as a whole, this party, the Liberal Party of Canada, cannot possibly support this budget.
I want to take this narrative, if I could, to a little higher level so that Canadians can understand some of the basic principles behind what the government is doing.
The bottom line in this budget, and I will come back to it in a second, is that taxes on the middle class are going up, and they are going up quite dramatically. It is a bit of a sleight of hand, but I hope to illustrate in a few moments how this is being done and why it is being done.
Let us step back. This is the biggest-borrowing, biggest-spending government in Canadian history. No government has borrowed more money and no government has spent more money, ever, in Canadian history.
It has gone from a $13 billion surplus to massive deficits. There has been an increase of $156 billion in the national debt, which as of today stands at $610,583,990,221.28. That is our national debt as of today. It is up by over $156 billion.
That is surprising, one would say, because it comes from a Conservative right-wing government, one would say, but let us hold on for a second, because this is actually quite a familiar pattern.
It started with Mr. Reagan in the United States. It continued through Mr. Bush. It continued through Premier Mike Harris and a small number of other right-wing Conservative governments in Canadian history, and it is now here.
Here is how it goes. First, the Conservatives get elected. They inherit a very healthy surplus.
That is number one.
The second thing they do, in order to curry favour and buy votes, is compromise their revenue-raising capabilities.
Then they go to the market and borrow heavily.
When they borrow heavily, they drive up their national debt quite significantly and then, of course, they create massive deficits.
Then, what do they do when they are faced with massive deficits and a very arbitrary timeline called the 2015 general election?
What they do is they begin to weaken our cherished Canadian public services. That is what they do, and they do it with a new twist. The new twist with the current government is that in order to pay for it, they stick it to the middle class. People in the middle class have to pay more taxes. Small and medium-sized businesses are paying more taxes, and they are also paying for it in cuts in services.
Let me illustrate what I mean when it comes to raising taxes.
Bill C-60 would raise taxes on Canadians this way. Small business owners, the backbone of the Canadian economy, would receive a $2.3 billion tax increase over the next five years. Who would that hurt? It would hurt 750,000 Canadians and it would risk Canadian jobs.
As well, the bill would raise taxes on credit unions by $75 million a year, which is an attack on rural Canadians and our rural economy.
It would also nickel-and-dime Canadians. It would add HST or GST to certain health care services, such as medical work that victims of crime need in order to establish their case in court. It would even raises taxes on safety deposit boxes. It would increase far more taxes than it would decrease. That is an objective fact.
Why is the government doing this? It is because the federal Minister of Finance learned at the feet of one of the masters. That master was a man named Mike Harris, in Ontario, whose principal adviser was Mike “Mud” Murphy from the state of New Jersey. That state went through the same kind of reckless experimentation that Ontario went through, and the minister has brought those lessons to bear here, except that it is more surreptitious, more underhanded, more stealth-like.
Here are examples of how the government is weakening our cherished Canadian public services.
We live in a federation of 10 provinces and three territories, and in the last six years there has not been a single meeting of first ministers on Canada's cherished national public health care system. That is unconscionable and indefensible.
What the government does is go into a back room and take a number. It might as well throw a dart at the wall. It takes a number to say it will increase health care funding by this much. That is it. There is no dialogue, no discussion, no priorities. Whatever happened to the government's wait time promises? We are still waiting. That has all evaporated.
There is no plan post-2014 for health care and no interest in a national approach to health. As a result, our cherished public health care system is weakening.
With respect to immigration, planned cuts would create longer waiting times. Family reunification would now be massively delayed. It is often characterized by members of the government as wasteful and expensive for the Canadian people when there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that is the case.
With respect to public safety, the Auditor General told the government that the cuts to front-line border offices would seriously compromise Canadian security at the border when it comes to inspections, drug enforcement, weapons caches and beyond. Less enforcement means more problems.
With respect to crime, there would be mandatory minimum sentences. We have been told that this would solve our victim problem. Really? Every single study ever conducted on crime tells us that a dollar spent up front saves us a $40 fee at the back end and minimizes the risk to potential victims in Canada.
It goes on. With respect to the environment and science, which we spoke about earlier, the budget would cut 700 positions at Environment Canada and 600 positions in agricultural research stations this week alone.
Search and rescue centres have closed in St. John's and Kitsilano, compromising public safety.
Let us take Canada's role in the world for one minute. After 60 years of Canada's brand being so strong at helping Africa, we are abandoning Africa. No matter what the government says, we are abandoning Africa at a time when all the economists are telling us that Africa is growing at 6% to 10% a year. Just when the economic opportunities have arrived, Canada is pulling out.
We are abandoning multilateral traditions such as the UN Security Council. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has said he wants to compel the Russians to do something about Syria, but then announced a week later that we would not even try to get a UN Security Council seat. That makes no sense. Multilateralism is in our DNA, and we have pulled out of it. Mulroney understood it with anti-apartheid. Chrétien understood it with anti-land mines. Martin understood it with the G20. Multilateralism has helped Canada punch above its weight.
The Prime Minister will not even speak to the UN General Assembly, while President Obama does it every year.
I will close with this: perhaps the most disturbing aspect for Canadians is a new propaganda campaign. Maybe it is because the Prime Minister did not win his personal lawsuit against Canada when he wanted the National Citizens Coalition to force all restrictions on advertising during political campaigns to be removed. Maybe that is why he is spending $600 million on government advertising, something that no member of that caucus can possibly defend.
