Jim Abbott

[Petitions, October 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first one has four pages with 105 signatures.

The petitioners are concerned that Parliament not repeal or amend section 241 of the Criminal Code in any way and uphold the Supreme Court of Canada decision of December 30, 1993 to disallow assisted suicide, euthanasia.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the privilege of moving to the finance committee which has been very instructive. There is a myth, an absolutely gigantic myth, that somehow billions of dollars are squirrelled away and that if we could get our hands on them we would solve the whole deficit and debt problem. The myth that was originated by the NDP unfortunately is being perpetuated by the Bloc Quebecois.

The plain fact of the matter is that family trusts have to do with capital gains. Family trusts pay taxes on earnings. Family trusts pay current taxes on interest. Family trusts do not pay tax on accrued capital gains until they are disposed of by the family trust. The myth continuously put forward by the Bloc is that they never pay or they are going to roll forward. The fact of the matter is that they will be paid in exactly the same way as any other individual pays them.

It is instructive to be sitting on that committee as they continue to try to put forward the myth that there is some kind of simple, magical equation, some kind of a simple answer, because there is not.

I come back to the same thing. It is going to hurt all Canadians. In further response to the member's question, the reality is that if we do not control this the people who will be hurt the most are those who can afford it the least. We have to target the meagre resources we presently have to make sure those people who have the least get the most in terms of help.

I do not think major industrialists and people who would have these countless millions of dollars in family trusts to which the Bloc keeps referring need the help of the social program. It is the intention and the direction of the Reform Party to protect those who need protection the most.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the government currently has a plan to go another $100 billion into debt over the next three years with this 3 per cent figure it is talking about. It has no commitment to reduce the deficit to zero. It has a commitment only to reduce it to 3 per cent.

I heard it said by the late Kim Campbell, that is late in a political sense, during the last election that there was not any problem. If she managed to get the overspending down to whatever the number was it was fine, it was going to be balanced books because we did not have to go out and borrow money. Then after actually analyzing what she was talking about, she

was going to be using Canada pension plan contributions. She was going to be using the actual cash flow, the input that was coming into the government. That same kind of fuzzy thinking has managed to spill over. Maybe there is something unusual about that side of the House. When people move from this side, which is where most cabinet ministers were in the last House, to the other side and get cabinet positions somehow a fuzziness seems to set in.

The reality is that there is no commitment on the part of the government to control overspending. I will not call it the deficit because that is confusing. The deficit is simply how much more is spent than is taken in.

With respect to the question of targets let us talk about UI. Right now the minister of human resources is going around trying to fly all sorts of trial balloons. The Reform Party principle is very simple and very straightforward. It is called unemployment insurance.

Unfortunately all politicians in the House over the last 20 years have forgotten the word insurance. Insurance works on an actuarial basis that it is not going to be used as some kind of low grade social program. Therein lies the problem. Even today the minister and the government are working through a UI revision as though they are revising a low grade social program. They are not putting it into the arena where it should be, which is unemployment insurance.

I have a lot of other comments but the bottom line to the exercise is that there is no simple answer to the problem. I am prepared to say to the people of Canada that it is going to hurt. We can either do it ourselves or we can have it done to us. As long as we continue to add $100 billion to the debt of the nation and as long as we continue to spend $110 million every day, we are not solving the problem. We are just digging the hole deeper.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

That is a valid question. Of course we would. One cannot just simply go hack, slash, bump and that is the end of it.

However a plan that after three years this government will owe an additional $100 billion in debt is absolutely the wrong direction. What we would have at the end of three years is we would not be going further into debt. Canada cannot afford it. The Canadian public intuitively in the back of their minds know it. They are just waiting for some politicians to be open, up front, honest, candid and frank with them and get on with the job that will have to be done.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your intervention. All of us are on a learning curve. I certainly am as one of the new people here and I appreciate your comment.

Remember the amount of $2,200 is needed from each one of us just to pay the interest on the debt. We are not even touching the principal. As a result, the cumulative debt of the federal and provincial levels of government is growing at a rate of $60 billion a year and the compounding continues. The pattern has persisted for years. Is calling this situation a fiscal cancer an overstatement? What would you call it?

And let us remember: Politicians did not do this. Governments did not do this. Civil servants did not do this. We prosperous, peaceful, common sense Canadians did this to ourselves.

Whatever the party or prime minister or finance minister, the Government of Canada has not had a single balanced budget in 20 years. During the same period there have been scores of budgets in the provinces. Relatively few provincial treasuries have forecast a balanced budget and only rarely have they achieved their targets.

Of course, we have had elections; 83 different occasions on which the people could exercise their democratic right to choose national and provincial governments. We had all those opportunities to change policy directions. We have elected Liberal, Progressive Conservative, New Democrat, Social Credit and Parti Quebecois governments. We have given them variously majority or minority mandates. We have even had from time to time intense national debates about debt and deficits, but our total debt has continued to soar even higher.

He talks about Canadians and says:

We have only ourselves to blame. Most experienced politicians, I would guess a solid majority in every cabinet in the country, will confess privately that there is no constituency for cutting spending. Canadians may be in favour of cutting somebody else's special interest spending but not their own. The result has been an endless procession of impossibly conflicting instructions to our political leadership: Cut spending, but not on this; save money, but not on that.

I like this guy. He goes on to say:

Pity our politicians. It would have taken the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to respond to such a conflicting cry and neither of them had to get elected.

Government spending problems are too often oversimplified as being a question of inefficiency. Some say that the problem can be resolved by reducing spending in all current categories. That would help but it is only the beginning. The real problem is that many government programs are outdated and it is not just that we are spending too much, it is that we are spending on the wrong things.

The real problem in my judgment is that we as politicians have a responsibility to talk straight to our constituents. During the last election it perplexed me whenever the Reform Party would talk straight and say we must drive the deficit to zero in as quick a period of time as possible that we were attacked by the

Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives as being the slash and spend and hack and cut party.

The reality is that we in Canada are at the wall. We have managed to get away with this infrastructure spending, or should I say borrowing, this transfer of intergenerational debt to my grandchildren who I have never seen and are not even born and their descendants, all for the sake of some election sloganeering.

It is the responsibility of all politicians no matter what their stripe to generate a culture of acceptance to the fact that it is going to hurt. It is going to hurt me, it is going to hurt you, Mr. Speaker, and it is going to hurt the people who are listening to this debate or reading it in Hansard . It is going to hurt. We fundamentally have a choice of doing it to ourselves under our control, or letting some external force do it to us.

Today the finance minister stood in this place and very forcefully and very eloquently said: "We will maintain control". How can you maintain control when you continue to spend $110 million a day more than you have coming in? It is impossible. You cannot maintain control in a world where there is such a thing as compound interest and in this instance compound debt. When we are spending $110 million a day that we do not have, we are simply transferring what we are doing in 1994 to somebody way out there somewhere else.

I conclude my comments with a quick review. Bill C-52 is going in the right direction for all of the right reasons. If you will pardon me for nit-picking, I happened to notice in our review that a part of the purpose was that the deputy minister be appointed by cabinet.

It strikes me that the deputy ministers of all departments are people of great importance and strength. They give direction to their departments and strong counsel to their ministers. I suggest that the deputy minister not just in Bill C-52 but in other bills should appear before the standing committee. There should be more public scrutiny because more and more power is falling into the hands of the top civil servants. That would be a healthy thing to do.

In summary we are going in the right direction with Bill C-52. I do support that direction. I do see all of the things the last member was talking about, but it is not good enough by a long shot. We as politicians must generate a culture of acceptance of the fact that we are living beyond our means. We must be straight up with our voters. We must convince Canadians that we will be able to go in the right direction.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is always nice to be able to say something positive about the direction in which the government is going. In this instance I believe that it is going in the right direction in terms of consolidation, efficiency and savings.

In fairness to Canadians who have suffered loss of real income over the last five years and who may have been displaced or have had members in their families displaced-many Canadians have had to scramble to survive-there must be an understandable lack of sympathy. I can understand the lack of sympathy on the part of Canadians for systems within the government which are bloated and not efficient. However the government is going in the right direction.

I also believe that within any workforce, whether it is the civil service or any industry, that when people are not efficiently producing they know it. When people are working at jobs that are dead end jobs and can see that they should be redeployed that they have this, I will call it, a antsyness, a feeling of discomfort in their place of work.

In that place of work there is typically a lack of job satisfaction. Certainly there is a lack of a sense of security. I know I have been in situations from time to time in employment where it was obvious that the enterprise that I was in was going nowhere and that gives no sense of security. When we have a lack of direction from the top, a lack of statement of purpose and a lack of plan coming from the top, it exacerbates the situation.

Yesterday in the House I raised the example of Parks Canada. We have a situation in my constituency where members of the Yoho National Park-only 90 people work there-are in a real dilemma. They do not have any idea of what is going on. The top people in the parks department do not have any idea what is going on either.

All sorts of things are being proposed. For example, in clearing the highway which is the major project for the park in the winter, it is now proposed that the whole operation be moved to Lake Louise. What does that do to the businesses in Golden? What does it do in terms of the efficiency? It is also proposed that the head office be moved to Jasper. What does that mean? The picture I am trying to paint is the situation all over the map.

When we have a downsizing challenge, whether it has to do with the issues covered specifically by Bill C-52 or all of government, I submit that the government must be prepared to take one step. That one step must be specific, it must be incisive like a razor, but above all it must be part of a total plan.

With great respect to the Liberal frontbench, to this point I get no idea of an incisive, total plan. As a consequence the civil service right from the bottom to the top is saying: "When is the shoe going to drop? Is it going to be me? What is going to happen?"

I suspect that members from British Columbia are aware of the fact that they will be getting letters, that they will be getting petitions from people within the civil service. I cannot speak for the rest of Canada but I can say as far as British Columbia is concerned, many of us are receiving representations from the federal civil service saying: "What is going on? What is going to happen next?"

There is a tremendous feeling of insecurity. If I could do anything I would encourage the frontbench to get on with a total plan and more important, to communicate what that plan is once they have actually got it together. The current fear and anxiety within the federal civil service is leading naturally to a loss of productivity.

A couple of minutes ago, I raised the issue that there will be $180 million saved on a $2.3 billion budget after five years. I repeat that the government is going in the right direction but the problem is it is taking rather mincing steps.

I would like to read an excerpt from a speech given by the chairman of the board of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on February 15 in Halifax. Considering that this person is responsible for countless billions of dollars in assets and has tens of thousands of employees in one of the major banks in Canada, he has a tremendous sense of the direction Canada is going. I suggest we listen rather carefully to this excerpt from his speech.

It is all too easy to think that debt is a government problem, but it is not. The debt does not cost governments; it costs Canadian taxpayers. Canadians pay for the debt directly every day in interest paid from taxes.

Before I carry on I want to underline the point that this is not the Reform Party speaking, although it sounds like it. This is the chairman of the board of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. He said:

The per capita annual interest charge is about $2,200 from tax revenues; $2,200 per Canadian goes to pay interest on accumulated debt. Before a single dollar of income is redistributed, before a dime goes to social programs, before a penny is spent on any other government program $2,200 must be paid yearly in interest for each and every person in Canada.

Are you listening? Remember, this amount-

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member that $180 million after five years is certainly the direction the government should be going. However I happen to note that is against a $2.3 billion per year budget.

I did some quick mathematics. I believe we are talking about an 8 per cent reduction after a full five-year period. Does the member not think there is a little bit more in the system that can be squeezed out than taking five years to get only an 8 per cent reduction in the budget?

[Immigration, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, that is the wonderful world according to the Liberal front bench. The reality is that with a quarter of a million people coming into Canada this minister's resources are being flooded. The Vancouver Sun columnist Barbara Yaffe on September 29 said:

Interestingly, most of the calls I have had in recent days about this issue have come from the Chinese Canadian community who express some knowledge of the tax evasion and they say they are outraged.

I ask the minister again, can he tell us, considering that he has obviously limited resources, what is the real agenda of the Liberal government by flooding Canada with too many immigrants?

[Immigration, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, according to the immigration minister, a quarter million immigrants into Canada is no problem. But the Minister of National Revenue knows that there are a group of people who have come into Canada, the so-called astronaut families, who establish residences of convenience here and then avoid paying taxes.

Because these people are giving a bad name to the honest, upright, upstanding immigrants who make the majority of immigrants, what is the minister going to do to resolve this situation?

[Canadian Heritage, October 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, handling the last point first, the roads currently are user pay and that is currently going into provincial coffers by way of fuel taxes.

What I am attempting to find out is the relationship between the amount of fuel tax that goes into the coffers of the province of B.C. and the fact that basically the province of British Columbia at this point appears to get off scott free from the very excessive costs of trying to keep Rogers Pass open which is a real chore. It is the same thing in Yoho Park.

The member's point is well taken and I have given a lot of thought to his question.

In the area of the pools I do not think there would have to be an excessive charge. If they are handled on an entrepreneurial basis as their own enterprise unit, which is the experiment currently being tried, we would find that the prices probably would not have to go up. If there were an entrepreneurial spirit on the part of management it would end up taking care of itself.

It is just that previously when the dollars were coming in and then going into consolidated revenue, there was no connection between the dollars coming in and the maintenance required because the maintenance required did not have anything to do with the dollars coming in. That is why I support the concept of the enterprise unit.

I would suggest that the member and others consider the Tatshenshini which is an area as far north and west in British Columbia as one can go. It is a large triangle shape that fits into the top corner of the province, right behind the Alaska panhandle. This is an area that the province of B.C. has now turned into a class A provincial park.

I cannot afford to go there. I literally cannot afford to go there. I do not happen to have $5,000 for a helicopter. I do not have another $1,500 for the rafting. It is there if I have the resources and I want to go there. If I have the $5,000 or $6,500 I can get there, but I do not have those dollars.

I suggest that the member consider that what we have done in the case of Tatshenshini in the province of B.C., recognizing that it is not a national park but still in concept, is to take an area, set it aside, take it out of the mining grid and turn it over to people who happen to have $6,500 so that they can raft down the river.

This concept of user pay for specific areas I do not think anybody is going to find too difficult when they put it against the cost of actually providing the service on a park by park basis.