Paul Martin

[The Economy, May 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, that is simply not true. Some 99% of Canadians who received the home heating rebate were Canadians who deserved it.

There is no doubt, as we have stated, that there were anomalies in the whole situation, the same anomalies that the Alberta government found when it made its rebates.

I would simply point out that there are 11 million Canadians who received the home heating rebate.

[The Economy, May 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, very clearly, we must always be vigilant with respect to inflation, but the figure the member is referring to is known as the headline rate. The one and two spread has to do with what is known as the core rate. Yesterday's figure was 2.1%.

[Poverty, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what the government did. Perhaps the hon. member was not paying attention at that point, but $900 million as of July 1 will go into the child tax benefit. That is primarily to deal with low income families with children.

If we take a look at our tax cuts, overwhelmingly they were dedicated to middle and low income Canadians. Let us look at the kind of money we put into health care and education to help low income Canadians. If we look at the numbers, we see that while the gap between the rich and the poor before taxes, and nobody should be very proud of it, after taxes that gap narrows.

[The Environment, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt about the priority of the environment to Canadians and to the government. That is why we have put $1.1 billion toward climate change over the next five years. That is why the government allocated in the $2 billion municipal infrastructure program a minimum of 50% of the total program to go to green municipal infrastructure, which is primarily dedicated to drinking water and to sewage treatment projects.

Announcements of these kinds of investments have already been made in the member's province of Saskatchewan, in Newfoundland and New Brunswick, and we intend to continue with that course.

[The Economy, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in the October statement we provided over $24 billion of stimulus to the Canadian economy. That statement also previewed the largest debt paydown. At the same time it made massive investments in health care and a wide range of social issues.

That is what it did. It is important to allow the effects of that to wend their way through the economy and that is what will happen.

Finally, the Canadian people in the November election voted and supported that budget and that statement.

[The Economy, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, if we take a look at all the spending announcements and spending commitments that have been made, they are either being covered by specific legislation in the House, which the hon. member and the others can certainly debate, or they are part of the main or supplementary estimates.

Every spending item at one point or other will be open to scrutiny by parliament.

[The Economy, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that of course they did. Much of the $750 million that went into the Canada Foundation for Innovation will go to the environment. Much of the funding that went into Genome Canada will deal with the health of Canadians. This was all money that came out of that year end surplus.

I remind the hon. member that as a result of the paydown of $33 billion of debt, $2 billion will accrue to Canadians every year, which they can invest in health care, in education and in the environment.

I also remind the hon. member that it was Tommy Douglas who said that the state should not be beholden to the bondholders. She might well reread what Tommy Douglas had to say.

[The Economy, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member will take a look at budget 2000 she will see very large spending on behalf of the Minister of the Environment and on behalf of the Minister of Natural Resources in terms of climate change and the environment. This is not one time spending but is continuing on and on.

There is no doubt about the primacy of the environment to the government. There is no doubt about the linkage between the environment and health, clean air and clean water. We did that in budget 2000 and we will continue to do that.

[The Economy, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, if we look at the projections that were made last year, if we look at the cushions and if we look at the protection of the contingency reserve, it is patently clear to anyone who wants to understand the numbers that the cushions are there.

Let me simply say the hon. member refers to the spending that has taken place under the Prime Minister. When we took office in 1993 our program spending was $120 billion. Today, eight years later, our program spending is $120 billion.

[The Economy, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, let us take a look at where the bulk of the increases took place: in health care spending, following the largest transfer to the provinces; the largest increases in equalization transfers to the less well off provinces in Canada's history; and increases in old age pensions and servicing elderly Canadians.

I would simply ask the finance critic which of those he would cut.