Mr. Speaker, when we get through all of this, I think there will be some reflection on how this happened. I am not sure that everybody is going to be totally happy.
Bill C-48 is an interesting proxy for a number of things that have occurred here. First of all, let me remind members about the content of Bill C-48 with regard to $4.5 billion of commitment only, and it is contingent, as the members will all know, that there will be a $2 billion surplus.
This is not in any way going to jeopardize the country by putting the country back into deficit. I should remind all hon. members that this is going to be the eighth consecutive surplus budget in Canada, getting us on a sound footing. That is why today's Edmonton Journal is saying that we are the top of the G-8 in terms of our performance.
The amount is $4.5 billion. First of all, it is very important to recognize that the government is in a minority scenario. We all remember what happened with Joe Clark in 1979. He simply said to the public, “I'm going to govern as if I had a majority”. We know exactly what happened. The government fell and he lost the government.
That is not the way to operate. That was 25 years ago. We have to learn from the lessons of the past. What a minority government does mean, and I think there is probably only one person here who has some experience from back then, is that any day a government could fall. In a minority scenario, a government could fall any day if it does not have a plan which is responsible and has the support of the majority of the House. When it loses that majority of the House, the government falls.
However, no party is going to be responsible by sending Parliament back to the electorate in the short term without having shown some good faith to try to make the minority government work. It means that parties have to talk to each other. It means that there is going to have to be some give and take. It means that sometimes we have to take a little bit less of what we want and understand that others would like to see certain other things.
When it was all said and done, what happened? In order to get support for the budget, to make minority government work, there was a deal made. Is that a shame? A deal was actually made between parties to say, “This would be acceptable if we could get some other items in there”. What were the other items?
It seems to me that the first item is $900 million “for the environment, including for public transit and for an energy-efficient retrofit program for low-income housing”.
So far I have not heard one person in the debate we have had on Bill C-48 say that he or she is opposed to these kinds of things such as the improvement of public transit and energy efficient retrofits for low income housing. Not one person has said that.
What was the second item? The second item is in support of “training programs and enhancing access to post-secondary education, to benefit, among others, aboriginal Canadians”, in an amount of $1.5 billion.
That is a lot of money, there is no question about it, but this certainly has been on the agenda and in past budgets of this government and of this Parliament. Have we done everything that we possibly can for post-secondary education? Certainly not. We can do more. That is acceptable. It is acceptable to do a little bit more.
The third item is “for affordable housing, including housing for aboriginal Canadians, an amount not exceeding $1.6 billion”. I have spent some time on the health committee, where we looked at aboriginal health issues. I have visited at least four reserves to look at the conditions to try to educate myself about the realities in the aboriginal communities.
There is no question about this. I do not think I have heard anybody in this place say that further investment to improve the quality of life and the health and well-being of aboriginals in Canada was not a good thing. There was no one.
Finally, with respect to foreign aid and the amount not exceeding $500 million, foreign aid may be a little more problematic for some, yet when we talk about situations such as Darfur, or Africa with the AIDS epidemic, or poverty in Ethiopia, or some of the other areas in the world, let me say that we are a generous and prosperous country. We want to make sure that we do our share in conjunction with our international partners to make sure that people have the dignity of food, clothing and shelter.
This is $500 million we are talking about. It may not do a lot, but again, I did not hear one speech in this place indicating that an investment of $500 million in foreign aid in the year 2006-07 was a bad thing. I did not hear members saying they had a problem with it.
If we were to check the record we would see that nobody has talked against these items. What they have talked about is the fact that Bill C-48 exists. In fact, the basic objection of the Conservative Party is to the fact that a minority government is working. It objects to the government working collaboratively with another party which has decided that Canadians do not want an election, that Canadians want us to show them we can make this work. If it does not work, then we can go back to them and they will judge who is responsible. There will be a judgment. That is what Canadians are saying. There will indeed be a judgment.
What did those members do? They said fine, if that was the way we wanted to do it, they would have an alliance too. They do not like two parties over here having an understanding so they will have an understanding as well. What is their understanding? All the Conservatives wanted to do was to throw the government out. The leader of the Conservative Party said he wanted to put us out of our misery as soon as possible.
What kind of attitude is that in terms of the question that Canadians ask, which is whether we have made a legitimate effort to make this minority government work? It was political opportunism at the time. The Conservatives were looking at polls and everything else except governing Canada.
Now we have the unholy alliance over there. We have the right and we have the wrong. The Bloc Québécois members are here to separate Quebec from the rest of Canada and the Conservatives have no problem aligning themselves with that party. Who knows what secret arrangement or kickback is going to happen if they should happen to defeat the government. How could we ever imagine that?
Some of the dialogue that has gone on has not been with regard to the substance of Bill C-48. Indeed, since the amount of dollars involved in Bill C-48 is 1% of the total budget, it is not the magnitude of the dollars but the principle. The issue really is the fact that there was an opportunity to make government work and those members resent that. That is the bottom line. They do not want minority government to work.
I listened to the speech made by the last member. At least half the speech was filled with things that I would not repeat. It was almost based on the philosophy that the best way to make oneself look good is to tear somebody else down. I would rather speak in favour of something rather than against something. Where is the substance?
Let me turn to some of those specific items with regard to the economics, the finances. It is described here as “do anything to keep control of government”, but on this side of the House we would say it is anything to make sure that we demonstrate to Canadians that we are doing the best we can to make this minority government work. Canadians do not want an election. They want us to make it work. If we do not do our best to make it work, Canadians will judge.
One of the issues that has been discussed often by members is the existence of a surplus. The Conservatives have argued that if there is a surplus, then Canadians must be overtaxed. That is a valid point to make, except for one aspect. A surplus is a matter that exists in one year. If we have a $2 billion surplus, that is a $2 billion surplus in that year. In the subsequent year, who knows what it will be?
However, if we say we have a $2 billion surplus so let us give a tax break for $2 billion, we might be able to do that and have a balanced budget instead of a $2 billion surplus in year one. However, what happens in year two if everything else remains constant? All of a sudden there is another $2 billion tax cut but no surplus to apply it against. That tax cut is each and every year. A surplus is not guaranteed each and every year.
Fiscal responsibility says we just cannot take an annuity and compare it to a lump sum payment. That is not the way finance works.
On top of that the member for Yellowhead has mentioned the government has a $500 billion national debt. However, when the Liberals took over in 1993, the deficit for the year ended March 31, 1994 was $43 billion, which came from the Brian Mulroney government. We could not eliminate a $43 billion in one year. It took until 1997 to finally get the fiscal house in order. It meant some pain. Canadians had to endure some pain. There were cuts in important programs.
I remember the finance minister saying to us that we had to make these cuts to save 80% of what we had. If we had not made them, we would have lost it all. It really took some guts to say that we had to get our fiscal house in order.
What has happened by making the tough decisions when the government took over? In 1997 we had a balanced budget and a small surplus. We were talking about things like what is the fiscal dividend. A fiscal dividend is not the surplus. The fiscal dividend is how much interest we will save by paying down debt. That is the permanent savings. Since we have balanced the budget, now eight consecutive budgets, about $65 billion of national debt has been paid down at a savings to Canadians of $3 billion plus each and every year, which is available to invest in health care and in the other priorities of Canadians. A $100 billion tax cut plan was fully implemented about two years ago.
It raises a question. I hear members ask about defence and tax cuts. Those are all important priorities. However, I am pretty sure that if we tried to address all the important elements of Canadian society in one budget, whether they be social or otherwise, we would do nothing well. We would never reach a credible threshold where we would actually have a meaningful impact. It means that we have to make some choices.
I always look not at a budget, but at the series of budgets. I look at where we are and if we have responded. If we were to make decisions that we would just do this one thing, we would never be able to catch up. It is about making choices. It is about government. If we make the wrong choices, or imprudent choices or irresponsible choices, there will be an election and the government will be judged. However, the government was re-elected four times because of the fiscal management of the country's finances. That is the issue.
The issue is that Canada is in reasonable shape. We can do better, but we are on the right track. We did not go into a recession when the U.S. went into one. We have not had a recession here since back in the eighties. The economic forecasters would never have thought or bet that Canada would not be in a recession for a dozen years.
People look objectively at the performance of Canada and it is not simply because government is making good choices. It is also because, through the prudence and contingency factors, we have put into place underpinnings so Canada can be resilient to the ebbs and flows of economic realities. It means that when things are bad we can do some things.
That was one of the problems with Brian Mulroney. There were growing deficits in each and every one of the eight years of the Mulroney government. During that period, if I recall correctly, there were some pretty good years.
