Jim Abbott

[Young Offenders Act, February 22nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose one concern of the Reform Party that I think has been fairly well expressed is the lack of success that the current YOA has had.

I wonder if the member could enlighten me on some things, for example the fact that 47 per cent of all cases where charges are made under the Young Offenders Act are for repeat offences; 19 per cent of all those charges are for the fifth offence under the Young Offenders Act.

In her judgment, what in the amendments is going to actually change that? What in the amendments is really going to work to

the resolution of that problem or do these amendments not touch the reality of the repeat offences?

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely respected the speech we just heard, particularly at the personal level.

Again I would like to state what we are really talking about here, to put it on a proper level of debate, is a different philosophy in arriving at the same goal. The Reform Party is not out to destroy social programs. What the Reform Party sees is the Liberal government, with its present course of action, in the process of destroying the ability to fund social programs.

I hope that the member and I could come to an agreement that we are both out for the same objective but we are attempting to arrive at the solution from different perspectives. I am sure the member is not suggesting that we do not desire to see the social programs not only continue but to be available for people.

With that in mind, I would draw this to his attention. We receive in the House a publication called "Quorum". On page 17 of "Quorum" he was quoting from the Edmonton Journal .

This quote is from the Edmonton Journal of February 18 where the energy minister, who is a member from Alberta, called the Moody's downgrade ``irresponsible''.

"It angers me when we are working very hard to get our fiscal house in order". She said Moody's should have waited until the budget is tabled, "and then if they do not think we have done enough; fine. Then they can let us have it."

"The truly important factor in all of this is that until we deal with our fiscal situation we are going to be held hostage by the Moody's and the others of this world. What they are doing is slowly undermining our sovereignty."

To me, that is a reflection of where Liberal members are coming from. They do not realize that when they look in the mirror and see broccoli on their teeth they should not smash the mirror, there is broccoli on their teeth. The problem in this case is that the Liberal government has been going out of its way to say Moody's is wrong. Moody's happens to be advising all of the people. The Wall Street Journal is wrong. All of these people are wrong and the Liberals are right.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary would not agree that the remarks we are hearing from Dominion Bond Rating Service, from Moody's, and from all of these other publications are trying to tell us something, that in fact the 3 per cent level that the government has chosen will have the effect of destroying Canada's ability to be able to fund the programs that he and I want to maintain.

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his speech today. We are down to discussing differences of opinion rather than getting involved with who loves their mother more. That is very helpful.

I also agree with him that we need some major tax revision. We were looking at the process and have come forward with a substantial difference between the way the Liberals think about government and the way we believe Canadians want to think about government. We had to do a complete shift before we could come up with these numbers.

I would like to run these assumptions on jobs by the parliamentary secretary. The Liberal flawed assumption on jobs is that governments can solve the unemployment problem through public spending. The consequences are that government spend-

ing is now at an all time high. Yet over a million people are still unemployed or underemployed.

By comparison, the Reform Party believes that the private sector and not the government is the engine of job creation in Canada. The government's role is to create a healthy economic climate by eliminating the deficit, stabilizing and reducing taxes, and reducing bureaucratic regulation and trade barriers. The result is that we would have significant increases in private job sector creation. Does the member agree?

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Now we will get some intelligent comments.

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, how scared the Liberals are of the Reform Party when they make absolutely outstanding comments. This speech is just absolutely, totally off the wall.

As I said to another member from the southern Toronto area, my family and the families of the people within our party have seniors who we are concerned about. We are concerned that this government is destroying the ability of government to fund the social programs on which they depend.

He says about us: "You are just doing to slash and burn, you are going to trash seniors". I cannot imagine the fear that there must be within the Liberal Party that finally there is a party that is prepared to stand up and expose government overspending, expose its inability to get spending under control. Social programs are under threat from the Liberal government.

I do not see anything positive about coming into the House and characterizing Reform members as being uncaring and not worried about social programs. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, that is the reason why we are here. That is the reason why we made such an effort today. We want Canadians to have an opportunity to see an alternative to the silliness that is presently going on.

I ask the hon. member a question. I know he has an accounting background and must be able to read a balance sheet. Surely he must know that while revenue is growing at a rate of 3.3 per cent, debt is growing at a rate of 10.3 per cent. The 7 per cent spread is growing. Every single solitary dollar of the $110 million that we borrow today is going to pay interest on the money we have already borrowed. We are going deeper and deeper into the hole.

Perhaps the hon. member can tell us, as a professional accountant, how in the world can you possibly run a balance sheet when you are going into debt twice as fast as you collect revenue?

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, once again I am puzzled by some of the comments of yet another Liberal.

It seems as though Reformers do not have parents who are in need of OAS. It seems as though Reformers do not understand what it is to be responsible for 80-year old people, that Reform-

ers somehow do not have friends and acquaintances who are falling through the cracks of our economic cycle.

It seems as though we live in a vacuum and only those opposite have a way of understanding. I am sorry. We do have parents in their elderly years who depend on OAS. We do have people in our families who receive GIS. We do have people in our families and acquaintances who require child care. To characterize the Reform Party as not knowing or not understanding is just beyond my capability to understand.

Perhaps I could help this member understand why these people are in that position, why they are dependent on the social welfare and the social safety net in the country. It is because the spending of the government is destroying our ability to be able to provide for them. That is why we came forward with the plan today.

I find it really unfortunate that this member, along with many others, would choose to interpret the Reform document from some kind of weird perspective, as if we had landed from another planet. We represent the people in our constituencies. We represent people in this member's constituency. I had the privilege of conducting a couple of town hall meetings and getting input from people in his constituency. I reflect many of the values of many of his constituents.

With respect to the issue of learning, I would like to ask the member if he has had an opportunity of taking a look through our document to page 47 where we show our method of lowering cash transfers but giving the provinces cash points. In fact, the amount of funding available for health and for education under our scheme actually increases.

This is not cut and slash. This is a realistic budget which is more than I can say for the pipe dream that the government is continuing to give to us.

[Taxation, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the finance minister, when he gets through the 30,000 letters we delivered yesterday, to read our taxpayers' budget because we have balanced it without any tax increase.

What could the finance minister tell Canadians who are already providing his government with $120 billion to convince them that it should have more?

[Taxation, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Canadian Taxpayers Association presented the government with a quarter of a million signatures of taxpayers saying no tax increase. The minister will be happy to know that I was one of the people who carried sacks of mail up to the minister's office.

Has he got the message yet, that there are to be no tax increases?

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, as a reflection of what my Reform colleague said, I must say that the Dr. Feelgood kind of thing this government seems to be into, trust it, everything is going to be fine, is very difficult to swallow when one realizes that this very day this government is going to the financial marketplaces all over the world, cap in hand to try and find $110 million.

I have the good fortune, if I can be permitted to be a little personal, that this week I am expecting to become a grandfather for the first time. As a consequence, it is a sincere and very personal concern for me that we have a government in power today that is prepared to encumber my grandchild to be with the spending of today.

The Reform Party came forward with its zero in three plan in 1992 and here we are just three years later. There is only so much that can be taken out of non-social spending. As a consequence for us to get to zero, which we must do in three years and what this motion is all about, we have now accelerated and gone from only taking $9 billion out of social spending to having to take a further $7 billion out of social spending. That has happened in two and a half years.

I ask the member in good conscience, and I am sure he will realize that I am being deeply sincere, whether it is really not immoral for this Parliament to go ahead and transfer the spending of today probably to my future grandchild's grandchildren. Is there not some kind of problem in the thinking of this member and perhaps in the thinking of the government that we should be doing that?

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the member from the Bloc is right. He and his colleagues in the finance committee do talk endlessly about tax loopholes. In spite of having been given the opportunity on repeated occasions to be able to point out to the finance committee what these tax loopholes are and quantifying them, they have been unable to do that to this point.

However, so that he can come up to speed on the whole concept of tax points and how they affect things, the hon. member should look at our document, if he has a copy of it before him.

On page 57 he will see the impact on post-secondary education of decreasing the cash transfers from the federal government which we have proposed of $200 million. If we transfer the tax points and give the provinces of Quebec, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island the ability to tax in place of the federal government taxing, he will see from the graph that by the year 2014 there is a very substantial net increase in funding for post-secondary education.

I recognize that we released this document just this morning. Perhaps he and some of the Liberal members have not had time to come up to speed.

As another example, if the hon. member would look at page 52 where we are talking about a 15 per cent cut in the entitlement going to seniors, he would see it. The very first line says: "Focus OAS and GIS on those most in need".

In answer to the question in his speech about whether this means everybody will be cut, no, it does not. However, I am really interested in the concept that we are proposing to transfer the ability of the respective jurisdictions, be they provincial or municipal, to deliver the services at the point of need and also to have the tax room for funding.

Apart from the "vive le Québec libre" kind of thing they are getting into, is that not exactly what they are after? I do not understand why there is a conflict between his and our own point of view on this issue.