House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2011, with 70% of the vote.
Social Policy Reform October 7th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, as we saw yesterday, the minister seems determined to attack proposals Reform did not make instead of defending proposals he did not make. When we talk about consultation, we talk about honest consultation, giving Canadians the truth and information including real costs, not rigged consultations and rigged government funded special interest groups.
How will this process be different? How will ordinary Canadians be heard?
Social Policy Reform October 7th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are beginning to suspect that the government is using consultation as an excuse for inaction. It says it is consulting on the GST, on immigration, on agriculture, yet when it does not get the answers it wants from Canadians it ignores them.
Why does the Minister of Human Resources Development keep talking about wanting to hear from Canadians when it is clear he only listens to the people he wants to hear?
Social Security Programs October 6th, 1994
Madam Speaker, I would like to think that people of good sense will always agree. I would like to think that we are working together here because we are getting paid by the people of Canada. I would also like to think that we are working together for the good of the people of Canada. As far as the problem of unemployment goes it is important to note that when we take large amounts of money out of the pockets of business people, investors and entrepreneurs to fund government activities and government programs we are diminishing their ability to create real long term sustainable economic activity which creates real long term jobs.
It is not governments that create jobs. It is us with our money and our hard work.
Social Security Programs October 6th, 1994
Madam Speaker, we have heard some good input into this debate today. I thought I would add some thoughts around four main points. One is why we need change in our social service delivery; second, talking a little about the process of change; third, our role as Canadians in getting change; fourth, where we go from here today.
We need to change our social service delivery. I think there is a consensus in the House about that. I would like to suggest four things that we must do when we talk about changing social service delivery. One is that social programs must be targeted to those most in need.
We are a rich country. As the Prime Minister is fond of pointing out, we have been identified as the number one most desirable country to live in by the peoples in the world. Interestingly, the Minister for Human Resources Development says in the plan we are discussing today that fully one-fifth of Canadian children live in poverty. I find it difficult to believe that with the billions of dollars we spend on social programs still one-fifth of our children live in poverty. Surely something has to change.
Second, the document says that nearly half of Canadians on welfare are employable. Here we have able bodied people who are being supported out of the public purse. Surely in the richest country in the world there has to be change in our social programs if this is indeed happening.
Another point in this document is that there is a large percentage of chronic users of unemployment insurance caught in a cycle of short term employment and unemployment and dependency again on public programs. In a country like ours we must be doing something wrong with the billions of dollars we spend every single year if these facts are correct that the minister is putting forth to the public.
The family should be recognized as the primary caregiver in society. Our social programs have strayed from that principle in large measure. Our social programs have said that it is mother government and the state that will look after every need and that there will be a program to help in every circumstance of life.
I believe that Canadians are self-reliant people. Canadians have a tradition in which families and communities stand together and help each other through hard times. That is a tradition. That is the element of our culture that Canadians very much want to preserve.
We want private and public help only as a last resort because we believe in standing together. We need to get the emphasis back from a government intruding in our lives and telling us what to do and taking our money and deciding how it is going to help us, to helping each other and being self-reliant to a much larger degree.
Third, our social program delivery should be decentralized to communities, to the community level, to private sectors, to the provincial level where the Constitution places it. Instead, we have strayed to huge federal centralized programs and they are not working for us. We spend about $160 billion every single year, a lot of money, and fully half of that is on social program spending. It is for social programs, transfers to provinces for social programs. Half of everything we spend is on social programs.
We need to make those programs work and the big, distant, bureaucratic, overlapping, inefficient programs simply are unworkable for Canadians. We want to be free to take care of ourselves and to look after ourselves at the community and local levels.
Last, we need change because social programs must be financially sustainable in the long and the short term.
Some time ago I was speaking to a man who was a third generation welfare recipient, but this man was different. He had become a multimillionaire through very hard effort and work on himself. He taught himself. One thing he did was read over 1,500 biographies of successful men and women in the world and he studied them and emulated the principles they had adopted to be successful. I asked this very wealthy and successful and influential man from another country what he would advise me to do as someone in public life, as someone in a leadership position. He gave me his advice in just two words: "Encourage thrift".
Our social programs do not encourage thrift. Instead they encourage dependency. Instead they encourage the expectation that if we spend our money and we do not save it, do not budget wisely, somehow somebody else is going to bail us out and that somebody else is the public purse, the government.
The government does not have any money. The government just has our money and it does not use it very wisely in many cases.
The programs we have had have been purchased not only with our own money but have been purchased on the back of our future. They have been purchased by mortgaging our children's future because right now our children owe over half a trillion dollars to pay for the programs we have given ourselves.
That is not a financially sustainable situation. Government programs are the problem, not the solution. Because of these programs and because of the way they have been financed, one-quarter of everything we spend is on interest and that interest obligation is rising and our children will have to spend that every single day.
To get change we must provide leadership and vision for a new way of doing things. We must move away from the old expectations. We must move away from the old ways of thinking and we must confront this situation with openness and honesty, without pretence, and without trying to savage and distort and run down people who are simply trying to put the facts out to the public.
We need leadership that will last in the public interest, not in political interest, and Canadians should look for that and should insist on that.
What role do Canadians have in this kind of change? If Canadians are to have a meaningful role in this debate and if they are to have meaningful input we owe them something as leaders. We must define the issues. It is not enough to say: "Oh, we are going to talk about this. What do you think?" We have to define the questions that need to be answered. That is very important. If we are going to give reasoned and thoughtful answers we have to know the questions.
Second, there must be fair and balanced information. The cost and the benefits, both in financial and social terms, must be clearly laid out to people. If they are going to give informed opinions they need to have information.
Third, they must have sufficient time. I am very concerned that we have a document that just came out yesterday and Canadians are going to have to indicate in three weeks time whether they wish to speak to this document and have their submissions in in just about a month. That is with nine background papers not even released. How are Canadians going to give informed input without this kind of assistance and background information?
Last, we have to demonstrate to Canadians that their input is going to count for something. If it is just a feel good exercise it is not going to count.
Therefore, I challenge all of us to know what we are doing, to be informed and to tackle the problem in a substantive way.
Social Program Reform October 6th, 1994
Until he is in opposition attacking the government I wonder if the minister would acknowledge that province after province has already spoken out against these proposals. The reason the minister cannot get co-operation from the provinces is because he is inflexible and unwilling to decentralize. Is this the minister's idea of co-operative federalism?
Social Program Reform October 6th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I am encouraged that the minister already sees we are going to be the government and he is already trying to-
Social Program Reform October 6th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, if this minister had anything useful to say he probably would not be attacking other members and inventing things that they never said.
Is not the reason this minister has only produced a discussion paper and not an action plan because the minister cannot get co-operation from the provinces?
Social Policy October 3rd, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I only wish that we could hear about these proposals here first instead of in the media. The government has obviously been reading the Reform policy book but it has been reading it backward. We recommend reductions to social spending only after there have been cuts in other areas, including reductions in subsidies to businesses, interest groups, crown corporations, government operations and Parliament itself.
Now that the government is proposing cuts how long will Canadians have to wait for cuts to MPs' pension plans?
Social Policy October 3rd, 1994
Mr. Speaker, members opposite lose no opportunity to distort what Reform says on social programs.
Reform's deficit elimination plan calls for reductions in transfers to provinces and now so does the government's social policy paper. For years Reformers have proposed restoring UI to its original role as a short term insurance support in case of job loss and now so does the government policy paper. For years Reformers have proposed a voucher system for distributing federal education dollars and now so does the government's policy paper.
I ask the minister this: When did the government stop reading its red book and start reading the Reform policy blue book?
Social Policy October 3rd, 1994
Mr. Speaker, the well orchestrated leaks to the media from the ministry of human resources leaves little doubt as to the contents of the social policy discussion paper.
The Deputy Prime Minister says this social policy exercise will not go to reduce the deficit. Yet the finance minister says: "It does not take a genius to figure out that the government will have to slash spending to meet its deficit cutting targets".
Given that two-thirds of all spending after interest is on social programs, how does the government square these two statements?