Dick Harris

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I prefer to refer to our party as the party of reasoned logic. There were a number of questions. I would like to answer them one at a time, if I may.

The hon. member referred to Canadians as being supportive of the Liberal government and what it is doing. We know how polls work. If we make 1,000 phone calls, 500 of them are made in the province of Ontario. Of those 500, 400 are probably made in metro Toronto. The same ratio applies to the province of Quebec. Those provinces are in pretty tough shape because of mismanagement by not only the federal government but also the provincial governments. In British Columbia and Alberta where the economy is better because we did a better job of it out there, it is not exactly the same as what the polls indicate. Let us be fair about the polls.

The hon. member talks about this $6 billion as being reallocated money. He is talking about taking the $6 billion savings, the savings in Liberal terms, from the helicopter deal and reallocating it to the infrastructure program. That money was not spent yet on the helicopter program. It was cancelled. Just because you do not spend the money that is not savings. This government chose to spend it. It chose to borrow $6 billion and go in the hole $6 billion more.

There is a simple truth and it is worth repeating. If the government formula of funding to create jobs, the billions and hundreds of billions of dollars that the Tories spent and the Liberals spent before them and now the Liberals are spending again worked, everyone in this country would have about six jobs for goodness sakes.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, asking me how to create jobs is the easiest question in the world to answer, and I will answer it for this hon. member.

The biggest impediment to economic growth in this country is the cost of doing business. Our taxation levels are among the highest in the world. We have taxed ourselves out of the competitive market in our manufacturing, our service, our production. The answer to getting business and industry off the ground is to give them some tax relief.

If the government had turned the $6 billion it spent on the infrastructure program into a $6 billion tax break for private business, it would not have just created the 7,000 or 8,000 jobs that it did, it probably would have created about 40,000 jobs. As a matter of fact, I could be corrected but I believe the Minister of Finance some time back said that it would create 40,000 jobs but that just did not come about. If the government would get off the backs of private businesses and give them some tax breaks, some tax incentives to expand and develop and to grow and hire more people that would create economic growth.

I want to talk about the crown corporations. I realize that some crown corporations play a vital role. However that is no excuse for the government's inability to run those crown corporations at least at a break even point. We are not asking the crown corporations to make any money, just break even at least.

The hon. members on the other side always make Reformers out to be the slash and burners, the hackers and cutters. All we want is a government that can operate something at least at a break even point.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

The government should never say never to taxes. We have income taxes, consumption taxes, property taxes, visible and invisible taxes, all under the assumption that government is better than the private sector at redistributing wealth to create economic growth and jobs in the country. I would argue that this is fundamentally wrong thinking. The surest way to create growth in the economy is to leave more money in the pockets of the investors and the consumers. Let them decide where their money will be spent, invested or even donated.

People speak of an impending tax revolt. I would suggest the tax revolt is well under way, considering the record of the Liberal government and the management of its financial house. An underground economy is flourishing. It is estimated at over $100 billion a year.

The government and its predecessors believe in the fallacy that increased taxes bring in a proportional share of increased revenues. That is absolutely ludicrous thinking. Taxes upon taxes upon taxes create disincentives to employment and investment. Will these shortsighted Liberals ever see that simple truth? I think not. As Michael Walker stated, such disincentives are creating a generation of workers who see no point in tiring themselves for paycheques that increasingly go to the government.

Apparently the government has been through some sort of magical awakening in the last few weeks. It is the recent contention of the Minister of Finance that "whatever fiscal action is taken, the bulk should come from cuts in program spending". Reformers rejoiced when they heard that; if only we could believe it.

In February the minister boosted the budget of his own department by $1.4 billion for 1994-95. He raised DIAND's budget $400 million and nudged citizenship and immigration up $80 million. In that same budget the Minister of Finance launched 18 new programs and 15 new studies.

February's budget also introduced a $6 billion credit card infrastructure program. As we heard earlier, among other things the program involved the covering of boccie courts, building stands and hockey arenas in my colleague's home town, and building the canoe hall of fame in the Prime Minister's own riding, a $6 billion borrowed money program that is still to this day staunchly defended by the Minister of Finance as necessary to stimulate the economy.

Now a few months later the Minister of Finance is looking for $9 billion in cuts. Has he suddenly become a believer in balanced budgets, a firm believer in the problems debt and deficit cause in economic growth?

Considering the flip-flop, how can Canadians be anything else but confused? How can they have confidence in a government whose initial vision was to spend, spend, spend to create wealth and growth in the economy and then a few months later its vision is that it cannot spend, spend, spend to create growth. This has to be confusing to a lot of Canadian taxpayers. Canadians want to know what the vision of this government is. All we have had so far is talk. They want to see a clear vision, not confusion, not flip-flopping.

This government is content to stumble around in the dark attempting to determine if it is time to spend or cut. It is certain of one thing and it is something Canadians are becoming increasingly tired of. When in doubt, if you lack the political guts to make necessary cuts you raise taxes.

If the government is looking for cuts it need look no further than its own crown corporations. VIA Rail, the CBC, the St. Lawrence Seaway, CMHC, and Ports Canada consume $3.6 billion of taxpayers' money. I would suggest if these are not viable corporations, if the government cannot operate them without incurring deficits then why does the government so steadfastly cling to them? Literally, we simply cannot afford arguments over sentimentality in order to justify the government taking financial shortfalls in these companies.

If the government cannot at least break even in these operations then maybe it is time to cut them loose, turn them over to the private sector. It is unfair and indeed ludicrous to return to the Canadian taxpayer year after year requesting more money to prop up a multitude of failing government business enterprises. The government should get out of the business if it cannot run it at least at a break even point.

If we take the $3.6 billion spent on these crown corporations and add it to the $6 billion wasted on the credit card infrastructure program, we arrive at the $9.6 billion in cuts, or approximately what the finance minister is now seeking.

I want to talk about public input. This government continues to speak of consultations with the public, not just any consultations but consultations which are successively unprecedented. The Minister of Finance once again has promised unprecedented consultations on the run up to his new budget. This was promised before the February budget.

How many Canadians favoured the removal of the capital gains exemption? How many Canadians favoured adding some $34 billion to the national debt? I would be interested in seeing those numbers but I do not think this government has them. I do not think they exist.

This government's definition of run up consultations is a sham. Extensive unprecedented consultations are a fabrication of this government. The Minister of Finance admitted as much before the Standing Committee on Finance when he stated: "Government by necessity has the final word". Remember this when the government says: "We know you do not want RRSP contributions taxed but by necessity we have to levy a tax on them". Or the minister might say: "We know you do not want to pay higher income taxes but by necessity we have to raise them".

This government should put questions concerning cuts or taxes to the people, really to the people, through a referendum or through their respective MPs in this House. Do not patronize them by considering the issues to be too complicated for them to understand and do not patronize them with arguments of necessity.

If this government were truly looking at a new vision for its role in the economy it would be looking to the people for direction through referendum or through the people's MPs to determine where to spend, where to save and where to cut. Instead unfortunately, the taxpayer is handed lines about necessity as the government makes unilateral decisions.

In conclusion, the government should be looking at lowering taxes and cutting spending in order to eliminate the deficit and eventually the debt. It should be looking at unloading a number of unprofitable crown corporations. It should be looking at removing itself as the blockade to Canadian ingenuity and entrepreneurship.

Instead, from this government we see a spendthrift budget followed much later by calls for thriftiness. We see a government hiding behind claims of necessity instead of actively consulting with taxpayers on how their money is spent. We see no vision, but we see more finger pointing at who got us into this mess. We hear of more consultations and we hear of more taxes.

With such a strategy for our country's economy, investor and consumer confidence will continue to deteriorate. Our impending financial crisis will continue to loom. All I can say to the Canadian taxpayer is: Hold on to your pocketbook as long as the Liberals hold on to power.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to the motion, specifically the part of the motion that refers to the role of the government in the economy.

Since 1986 Reformers have been talking about the financial crisis in the country. We sent warnings to the Tories when they were in power and they did not listen to us. We in the Reform Party have been warning the government for months and months of the impending financial crisis in the country arising out of the mountain of debts and deficits.

We warned that investors feared the economic uncertainty in our country. We warned that spiralling debtloads would hamper the country's ability to create jobs. We warned that consumer confidence would not return unless the government got its financial house in order. These warnings have simply been cast aside by the Liberals in the last several months and they have branded Reformers as fearmongers.

They would say there was no crisis, the debt was under control or cuts simply would do more harm to the economy than good. Now the Minister of Finance says that debt stands in the way of the growth we seek and limits our ability to create jobs. He says that his ultimate goal is a balanced budget.

This new Liberal stand leaves Canadians sort of confused since only eight months ago the Minister of Finance tabled a budget rife with new expenditures and new taxes, a nefarious combination that encouraged an ever expanding underground economy, a nefarious combination that leaves investors nervously standing pat and consumers keeping their wallets in their pockets.

Now the government tells Canadians to forget that budget, forget the $34 billion it would add to the debt, forget the $100 billion it proposed to add to the debt in the next four years but trust it today, for in the last 32 weeks it has been mystically reborn and sees the evils of it spendthrift ways.

It is this confusion, this flip-flopping or lack of focus that leads Reformers to call for the government's clear vision of the role it will play in the economy. To date the vision of the government and its role in the economy have been shortsighted at best. It continues to intervene in the marketplace creating disincentive for investments, disincentives for Canadians to work and disincentives for Canadians to spend.

One way in which the government stunts the wealth creating potential of the economy is through its measures of taxation, and the Liberals know all about taxation. The capital gains tax exemption was removed in February's budget and this will discourage people's will to invest. We pay tax on interest in savings accounts and now there is talk about taxing RRSPs.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the previous speaker. The government always talks about when Canada is compared with other countries this is the greatest country in the world in which to live. Quite frankly, it is no contest. Canada is, when you compare it to other countries, certainly the best country in the world in which to live.

I would like to suggest a real test for the government. Compare Canada as it is now with its huge financial crisis, its huge deficit every year, its huge national debt, with how it could be if we had had responsible government running the country over the last 25 years.

I look over at the government and I see a mirror of the Tories. The Tories' plan was not to reduce spending but count on revenue growth to get us out of this fiscal problem. They merrily spent like drunken sailors and, guess what, revenue did not grow. We ended up another $200 and something billion in the hole. The deficit climbed every year and the expected revenue growth simply did not occur.

That is what the government is counting on as well when it uses a figure of 3 per cent GDP by 1997. Theoretically by using that figure, the government does not have to cut costs. All it has to do is hope for the revenue growth to go up and it will achieve that percentage. But that is no accomplishment in thrift. That is no accomplishment in-

[Social Reform, October 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal's discussion paper on social reform policy has no meat. The Liberals had months to develop these proposals and yet there is absolutely nothing we can sink our teeth into.

The Liberals accused reformers during the campaign of wanting to destroy social programs because we wanted to target spending to people in need. This is what social programs are for. By contrast, the Liberals and Tories have traditionally used social programs simply to buy votes.

Canadians are fed up with this. We cannot even begin to make significant cuts in our budget unless the government has the guts to wade into the waters that it and the Tories muddied. We need an action plan directed at those most in need. We need an action plan that targets those who cannot work, not those who will not work.

Canadians want action. What they get are more and more delays, more and more wasted time while the Liberals consider only their political future.

Let us take politics out of this and put Canadians first.

[Justice, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on October 2 the Ottawa Sun reported that a man convicted of a savage murder in 1976 will be given a second chance at early parole because the Supreme Court ruled that the crown consistently and improperly appealed to the jury's passions during his first hearing.

The court has decided that this killer who stabbed his victim 132 times and used five different knives in the process deserves a second chance. What about his victim? What about her chances? What about her chances to live a full and happy life? She got no second chance.

It is time to give law abiding Canadians a second chance, a second chance to regain faith in our criminal justice system. It is time to close the loopholes and throw out the bleeding heart liberals who so frequently allow such dangerous offenders back into society.

For crimes as savage as this, Canadians demand that a life sentence must indeed mean life with no second chance.

[Canadian Heritage, October 3rd, 1994]

I would like to ask the hon. member if in fact she did say that and if she did not would she refer back to that portion of her speech because I thought I had a question for her?

[Canadian Heritage, October 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's statements. I have a couple of comments and questions I would like to ask.

In this great country one of the real freedoms we have for people who immigrate to Canada from other countries is the freedom to preserve their cultural heritage and cultural traditions. One of the questions we are asked by Canadians as we talk to them about multiculturalism is: Why does the federal government feel it is necessary to provide taxpayers' money to these groups in order for them to pursue their cultural heritage?

Some comment that if a particular ethnic group felt so strongly about preserving their cultural heritage they do not need federal taxpayers' money to do so. It is provided in the freedoms that they enjoy in this country.

I would like to ask the member what specifically is the government's justification for providing taxpayers' money to these cultural groups in order for them to preserve their cultural heritage?

I have another question or perhaps a comment. I am sure I heard the member earlier say that when she was in Quebec she was a Quebecer and when she was in Canada she was a Canadian.

[The Debt, September 30th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, fall is in the air and the redness of the leaves is eclipsed only by this government's balance sheet. As of this morning Canada was in debt to the tune of $532,444,756,445.36. That is $18,718.40 for every person in Canada, or $37,879.22 for every taxpayer. By the time it takes me to read this statement the debt will have grown by $88,410.

This government says it is concerned about the debt, but I remind the House that it was the Liberal Party in the 1970s and 1980s that sold Canada's future to pay for whatever spending was needed to get it re-elected. The Conservatives finished the job because they did not have the guts to kick the deficit habit.

It is the Liberals who have sold us and our children to our creditors.