Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Calgary East to speak to today's Reform sponsored supply day motion. I would like to repeat the motion of my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill so that it is very well understood.
That this House calls on the Minister of Finance to increase the Canada health and social transfer by $1.5 billion and forgo the $1.5 billion increase to federal grants and contributions in this year's federal budget.
We all know and it is no state secret that the finance minister is trying for the Prime Minister's job, but Canadians feel that health care is the number one priority. Even the Liberal pollsters stated at the convention that health care was the number one priority of the country. Partly they feel that under the Liberal government health care is in a crisis because it has cut and cut and cut its contributions to health care. At the same time it increased the HRDC grants and contributions by $1.5 billion.
Over the last few months the official opposition has showed what has gone massively wrong with the grants and contributions in HRDC, especially the transition jobs fund. We have asked the minister and the government for answers on where and how taxpayer money was spent. We did not get any credible answer.
What we got was a spectacle of stupidity. We now see that the minister of HRDC was stealing supposedly so-called jobs from the government's own Liberal MPs next door to her riding and moving them into her riding in HRDC grants. It has been quite clear that in the last two and a half months that the HRDC transitional jobs fund was a slush fund for the government to blatantly buy jobs and give an impression.
The Prime Minister said that it was his job to work for his constituency. That is fine, but he forgets he is the Prime Minister of Canada and his constituency is the whole of Canada, not only Shawinigan. How can we account for his riding of Shawinigan getting more money than Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba combined? How can that be explained? Perhaps the Prime Minister should be told that he has a whole country to take care of, not just his friends.
Let us talk about Earth Canada. When we asked a question about EDC giving money to Earth Canada, which has cronies of the Prime Minister as directors, the Minister for International Trade said that it was a business decision. They are hiding behind the fact that EDC gave money to a firm that could buy services from Earth Canada. At the end of the day, after we had gone around in circles, the cronies of the Prime Minister sitting on that board had benefited from the loan, not the other companies.
We have seen an exposé on EDC. The same has happened with Amtrak. Money was given to the richest country in the world for Amtrak and we are financing it. At the end of the day it comes down to Bombardier in Montreal that will benefit from the so-called grant. Where is all this money? Somehow somewhere it points to the Prime Minister, his friends and Liberal cronies that are appointed to sit on these boards.
Canadians from one end of the country to the other are asking what is happening with the government, a government that is lacking in leadership? The pollsters have to tell the Liberals, not their own MPs who should be listening to their constituencies, that health care is the number one crisis. It is the pollsters who have to tell them. It shows how much in touch Liberals MPs are with their constituents. It is very easy. If they sit in their offices they will know what Canadians are telling them.
Why can it not be possible for the government to transfer that $1.5 billion to health care, the Canada health and social transfer?
When I was in my riding this past weekend Canadians came to the office to say that they were worried about health care. Health care is their number one priority. They are very much worried about it. The cuts the government made to health care have created a crisis. The provinces are trying their best to balance the shortfall.
On the day the Minister of Finance brought down his so-called great budget, did the government listen to the Premier of Newfoundland, Brian Tobin, a Liberal colleague? This person, who would like to be the leader of that party, came out smacking the government by saying that the health care transfer was not sufficient and there was crisis?
What do we have? We have the Minister of Finance giving $1.5 billion to grants and contributions in the federal budget so the government can feed its friends who hold all these positions. When will the government listen to Canadians? If it does not then it will end up sitting on the opposition benches.
Let us look at grants and contributions. The government says it wants to create jobs, but every economist says that taxes in the country are the number one job killer, the brain drain. A simple solution is not to throw money. That does not create jobs. Even the auditor general says so. The simple solution is to reduce taxes. That would clearly increase productivity in the country. That would be the simple solution.
What do we get from the Minister of Finance in the budget? A tax cut. I do not think it is even a modest tax cut. It is a band-aid solution. Canadian economists all stated that we should reduce taxes so that productivity would increase and Canada would rightfully go back to its position as the number one country in the world.
The official opposition has presented a 17% flat rate plan, contrary to what the Prime Minister would like to say. That would address many issues. It would put money back into the pockets of Canadians. It would put money back into the pockets of single mothers. It would put money back into the pockets of women who have decided to stay home to raise their children. That is where the money should be. At the end of the day it is the consumer who will drive the economy.
These are simple solutions, but based upon the Liberal convention last weekend we know the government is lost and without vision. At this time I would like to move the following amendment:
That the motion be amended by inserting after the words “the Minister of Finance to” the word “immediately”.
