Preston Manning

[Health, March 2nd, 1995]

I ask the Prime Minister again for a straight, forthright, one-word answer. Is the government planning further reductions in health care transfer payments to the provinces, yes or no?

[Health, March 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister began his answer by saying that they were not spending money and ended up by saying that they were spending money. Every time the Prime Minister gives an evasive or political answer to this question it just heightens the suspicion that the federal government has some alternative plan.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Again, I ask for an honest, straightforward, one-word answer.

[Health, March 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, one of the cornerstones of integrity in government is full disclosure. If the federal government has plans to reduce spending on health care in the short run in order to save medicare in the long run, it should simply say so. That is what the Reform Party did in its taxpayers' budget. Canadians have a right to expect the government to be equally frank and up front.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Is the government planning further reductions in health care spending, yes or no?

[Health, March 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in an interview yesterday on the CBC, the Prime Minister suggested that medicare needs to be reduced and revert to meeting more basic needs.

The Liberal budget includes further reductions in federal transfers for health care and the intergovernmental affairs minister has apparently told the Quebec government that Canada's health laws need to be opened up. All of these things are completely opposite to the promises in the red book on health care.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Is there a federal plan to restructure health care and health care funding? If there is, why did the government choose to omit that plan from Monday's budget?

[The Budget, March 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, if the chief financial officer of a publicly traded company put out a prospectus on Monday and it was found out on Wednesday that they had hidden plans which affected the bottom line and all the shareholders, that CFO could go to jail under Ontario securities law.

None of us would like the Minister of Finance to go to jail, so my question is: Will he come clean and tell Canadians what social program cuts the government is planning in order to balance the budget after 1997?

[The Budget, March 1st, 1995]

There are also broad hints in the budget that the minister is obviously contemplating deeper cuts in social spending and transfers if he is going to balance the budget.

If these plans are in progress they are being developed behind closed doors, without Canadians knowing. We even wonder whether the Minister of Human Resources Development knows about them. The finance department is planning major cuts. The human resources minister yesterday said that what they were going to do was reshuffle existing funds to his department.

My question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Is that minister personally aware of the changes the finance department has in store for social programs? If so, will he share that agenda with the Canadian people and with the House?

[The Budget, March 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I refer to stories in a number of the financial papers about assurances being given-

[The Budget, March 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday officials of the Department of Finance were telling investors that Canada would balance its budget by the year 2000. Today they are reassuring those investors that even a downturn in the American economy will not stop the government from balancing the budget because the effects will be offset by cuts to social programs and transfers to the provinces.

My question is for the Minister of Finance. Why were Canadians not given more details about the impending social cuts in Monday's budget? Will the minister reveal his real agenda for social spending reductions, a hidden agenda which must exist if the budget is to be balanced by the year 2000?

[The Budget, February 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the minister claims that his budget protects social programs from unfair unnecessary cuts, but the real social cut is lurking in the massive unnecessary interest charges that this government is irresponsibly building by not attacking the deficit more quickly.

This means that when Liberal social cuts come, as they will, they will be bigger and more desperate and more destructive than Canadians could imagine.

Will the finance minister honestly admit to Canadians that he has put social programs in the gravest of jeopardy by failing to balance the budget more quickly when he had the chance?

[The Budget, February 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the fundamental flaw in the minister's answer is the same fundamental flaw that was in his budget yesterday.

It does not come clean about the imminent threat to Canada's social programs from rising interest payments. Under the minister's budget plan program spending will be reduced by $12 billion over three years, yet the interest on our debt will grow by $13 billion to $51 billion a year in 1997. The reality is that the interest payments are growing faster than the ability to either cut or raise revenue.

My question to the finance minister, and this is just looking for a straight figure, is can he tell Canadians how many billions of dollars per year they will be paying in interest in the year that the budget is finally valid?