Preston Manning

[Health Care, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister has declined to notice that the provinces spend 46 per cent of the money spent on health care and private individuals and insurance companies pay 28 per cent and the federal government is now a junior player.

We are wondering who is going to supply the fiscal facts of life at the health care forum. The Prime Minister and the health minister are not strong on math, and the finance minister is here.

My question is for the finance minister. The finance minister has said that everything is on the table in his spending review. This is the new fiscal reality. Can the finance minister confirm that federal health care spending is on the table and is the Prime Minister communicating this fact at the health care forum?

[Health Care, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, a funny thing happened on the way to the health care forum.

The provincial governments which have jurisdiction over health care and pay the bulk of the bills are not being allowed to lead the health care reform process. They are sitting on the sidelines.

The Prime Minister would not even agree to share the chairmanship of the forum with the premier of Saskatchewan, the province that pioneered medicare.

My question to the Prime Minister is when is the federal government going to stop alienating the provinces by pretending to lead the health care reform process and let them lead the reform of social programs for which they are constitutionally responsible?

[Taxation, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the truth is that the Liberal cabinet has not the foggiest notion of how to balance budgets and Canadians are paying the price for it.

Reformers in the House know that the Minister of Health cannot read a financial statement, that the Prime Minister does not know that jobs are created by deficit cutting and not public spending, and that the Minister of Human Resources Development has never balanced a budget in his entire political life.

How much more are Canadian taxpayers going to have to pay while high spending Liberals learn the elementary lessons of fiscal responsibility?

[Taxation, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the minister was told in the budget debate six months ago that his spending cuts were inadequate. He insisted that they were good enough. When interest rates went up, the minister was told by analysts, by officials in his department, by the money markets, that his deficit cutting was off track. He insisted he was on track.

The minister has repeatedly been advised over the last six months that his deficit control program is off track and how to fix it, but he has ignored that advice.

Why should Canadians believe that their advice would be listened to now?

[Taxation, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the finance minister admitted that the spending cuts contained in his last budget were not sufficient to even meet his own modest deficit cutting target. He admitted that unless another $3 billion to $5 billion in savings is achieved in 1995-96 and another $6 billion to $9 billion in 1996-97 he will not meet his target.

My question is simple and direct and I hope to receive a simple and direct answer. Where does the minister expect to get that order of savings?

[The Economy, October 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the money markets believe that the cabinet is divided and many Canadians do too. If the cabinet does not get its act together we are going to need another aisle in this House with the hard headed Liberals and Reformers on one side and the soft headed Liberals and the Bloc members on the other.

The other evident division in the cabinet is between those who think that tax increases are still possible and advisable and those who know that they are not.

Will the Prime Minister give an unequivocal guarantee that tax increases are not an option for deficit reduction?

[The Economy, October 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am seeking commitment from the Prime Minister and the government, not equivocation.

The cabinet and the Prime Minister's resolve to substantially reduce spending is still in doubt. Yesterday I directed a question to the finance minister on this subject but it was the Deputy Prime Minister who intervened. At one time they were both standing until the Deputy Prime Minister stared down the finance minister. I note also that the Canadian dollar dropped yesterday. I do not know if there was any connection.

I ask the Prime Minister, whose position on deficit reduction is the government's position: the Deputy Prime Minister's position or the finance minister's position?

[The Economy, October 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, evidence is mounting that the cabinet is divided on the urgency and importance of reducing the deficit and the debt and this is going to cripple the government's deficit reducing efforts.

Some ministers such as the finance minister appear to recognize and demand more serious and substantive spending reductions. Other ministers such as the Deputy Prime Minister only reluctantly agree to mild spending reduction. The silence from the Prime Minister is deafening.

Will the Prime Minister show some leadership by stating right now whether he supports the Deputy Prime Minister and her free spending colleagues or whether he supports the finance minister in his deficit reduction efforts?

[Points Of Order, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During question period the member for Calgary West asked two questions of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. One was on the constitutional position of the government on the legality of cessation. The other was on the question of whether the Government of Canada had the competence to allow or disallow a referendum on secession. Neither was hypothetical.

The minister declined to answer these questions on the grounds that they were hypothetical. We believe neither was.

[Economic Policy, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, top heads got the chance to answer the question.

The finance minister also knows that given the current economic situation, any suspicion at all of federal tax increases will further damage private sector expansion and job creation.

Will the finance minister show some leadership today by giving an unequivocal guarantee right now that tax increases are not the option for solving the deficit problem?