Budget Speech - 2000
(May 17/2000)
Madam Acting Speaker, I am very, very pleased to rise today in support of the Budget. I think it is an excellent budget. I think it has a balanced approach. I think it will make a positive change to the lives of Manitobans. We are, after all, trying to make positive changes to the lifestyle, living style, and standard of living in this province.
I think we have made some wonderful strides ahead in this budget. I look at it, and I see $135 million more to health care. That is a huge increase. More importantly, it provides an end to hallway medicine. It provides a shorter waiting list for cancer treatment. It provides adequate staffing. It provides hope for people who are looking for home care and could not achieve it. It also provides long-term stability. What it means is you are investing in home care opportunities, so that seniors can stay in their homes. You are building seniors homes, so that they have a supported environment and they do not have to leave to go into the hospital, which is a very expensive alternative. What we are trying to do is provide good quality health care at a good price, a fair price.
An Honourable Member: Affordable. Affordable for the province, as my honourable friend says. Some things that I am really proud of that we have done in this budget: One of the things is we made things rather transparent. Previously, governments would increase water tax on certain Crown corporations like Hydro. So what would happen is that they would not take money out in the open, out in the Budget. It would be buried somewhere in the Hydro budget and not up front. I think it is very, very important to have transparency.
The previous government has said that they did not take money or that they did not obtain dividends. I do not know the difference between taking money on a tax or a dividend. It is still revenue for the Government. How you call it is immaterial. What is important is that Hydro can be a benefit to all Manitobans in a number of ways–one, to have low, affordable Hydro rates, and the other, providing some assistance or dividend to the people who own it, who are the taxpayers and the people of Manitoba whom we represent.
The other thing is, let us talk about tax brackets. I am really pleased to see that we have a very, very fair tax system. I believe that we have a system where most Manitobans are getting a tax break.
What we are saying is that the people who are getting the tax break are the following: We are talking about people who are seniors; we are talking low-income people; we are talking about the average family who is getting a tax break. Now let me discuss how that happens.
The members opposite say we have the highest taxes, tax rate, but what they often do not take into account is the tax credits. To explain to the members opposite–which may need some assistance–what happens is that you charge a tax rate and then you have deductions or you have credits. Now, you are saying that we have the highest tax rate. You charge a tax rate and then you give credits or deductions, and then you come up with the final product. Most Manitobans do not know or do not care, frankly, what the different methods of calculations include. What they care about is the bottom line.
The bottom line is after you take the tax rate, the tax credits, the family tax credits and all the rest, they will be paying less tax. That is the bottom line, and that is the important part of our budget. [interjection] The Member for Fort Whyte (Mr. Loewen) wants to discuss it. I would be happy to discuss it with him, and we can go pull out a tax program and compare our rates with many other jurisdictions. I am pleased to note that the Alberta tax rate is 11 percent. That is their base tax rate. Ours is 10.9 percent. That is less than vaunted Alberta's.
The other thing that is very important to note is that Alberta charges a health care premium. My brother, who lives in Alberta, says that they charge a premium. So they pay their income tax, and then they pay a premium. Again, the taxpayer does not care whether it comes out of the right-hand pocket or the left-hand pocket. There is one taxpayer, and they pay the bill. Whether you call it a health care premium or income tax or a licensing fee does not make a difference. It comes from the same taxpayer. So, when you talk strictly tax rates, it is sort of a misnomer. What you care about is the bottom line. We have a very, very good bottom line to seniors, to people on fixed incomes, to young people and the people on lower income, and that I am pleased to support.
There are some other initiatives that I am very, very pleased with. In Education and Training, I note that there is a decrease in financial and administration costs. Where did that money go? There is an increase to special needs, and this is something that was presented in the special education report. They said that we needed money in all levels, 1, 2, and 3, in special ed, and that our government provided, and I am proud of that. It also said we should be giving money to school divisions, and we are giving money to school divisions. How are we giving money to school divisions? In general operating grants, so that local school boards have autonomy to set education priorities and help the average school. That is what they wanted; that is what the average Manitoban wanted. We delivered.
Other things that we did. We worked with school divisions to implement technology, and I am very pleased to say that we talked to some suppliers of educational technology and we got special group purchase prices, which dropped the cost of providing technology to schools. When people bought from large educational computer suppliers, they paid a certain premium because each school division acted separately. I am really proud of the Minister of Education Mr. Caldwell) and the Ministry of Education, because they then set up bulk purchases so that all purchases went together and decreased the cost. That is showing economies of scale. That is bringing school divisions together to save money administratively, and that is what we want to do. We also improved adult literacy grants to actual delivery agencies so the actual grants to adult literary organizations increased, and I am really proud of that. As a former board member for literacy workers of Manitoba, I am really proud that we are increasing grants to adult literacy programs. Why? Because then the people can become productive members of society. We are offering them the support, the hand up to become productive members of society. Literacy is a major factor in health care, employment, in all sorts of things, and so, by increasing the literacy level of our province and by providing the opportunities, our government is giving people an opportunity to improve and the support to help themselves.
The other things that we are doing. We have increased money to the Youth Community Partnerships and youth programs. Again, youth is our future, and by putting money into youth programs, into the community partnership initiatives, we are investing in the future, and I am really proud to see that.
Other things that are really exciting. I noticed that there was a large increase percentage-wise in apprenticeship programs. This is a specific project that, I think, is very, very crucial. A lot of people who are presently involved in apprenticeship abilities like the electricians, the plumbers, et cetera, are getting older. The average age of an electrician, I think, is 45 or 46 years old, and these people will be leaving the field. I think it is essential to have a good apprenticeship system. I think it is essential to start the process now, because it takes a person a long time to become a journeyman–or a journeyperson. We have to start the process now. If it takes five years to become a journeyman electrician or a cook or whatever, we have to start the process now so that we can see strong economic results in the future. The apprenticeship program is the people who build the province. They are the ones that build the concrete part of the province, so I am really excited that we are improving the apprenticeship and supporting it with more money. The other thing that we have increased is the post-secondary strategic initiatives fund. What this is doing is money for specific projects in specific areas that will do high demand, high employment areas, and that is crucial for our economy. I am very pleased that we are doing that.
Again, I have said in the House before, and I reiterate, it is essential to have a high-skilled, high-educated workforce. What we do not want is a race to the bottom that was happening with the previous government. We want to race to the top. We want skilled employees earning high value-added jobs, and what we will do is race to the top economically. We will have a good base on which to build economically. We do not want to be the low-end jobs, the low-end employment area of the province. We want to be the high end, and I think this budget helps that.
Some other areas that are really important in education are the increased college expansion. Again, our history in college is dismal. Our participation in college programs is one of the worst in the country. I think the initiative to get decent college spaces and increase the college spaces is essential for our economic well-being and our future. I think the Minister of Finance (Mr. Selinger) has recognized this by putting money into investing for the skills and education for our future.
The other important parts in education are the increase to Access. One of the programs that was decimated by the previous government is Access. The Access program took people who did not have good accessibility to post-secondary institutions and gave them the eeconomic and social and academic supports so that they could become part of the economic system. It was a very cost-effective program. It was a very efficient program, and it produced some wonderful people that I am proud to say that I have worked with. I am really proud that this government has increased the funding to Access and expanding it so that we can have more people who have been previously disenfranchised become participants in our society.
Other programs that I am very pleased to see is we finally brought back bursaries. I cannot remember the last time there were bursaries available. What it means is that people can finally afford to go to school. It is wrong to have students leave university and college with $30,000 to $50,000 worth of debts. It is wrong. We are mortgaging their future. What we are going to do is bring back bursaries so that young people have hope in this province, and I am proud to be part of a government that is bringing back the bursaries.
The other thing that we have done is increase by $10.8 million the base operating grants for colleges and universities, a huge increase that I am happy to support, and $5.1 million to colleges. This will allow that there will be tuition decreases, not increases, but decreases for students who are entering post-secondary institutions. We have to make it affordable.
One of the trends I was really afraid of was the fact that there were more students who were going to schools part time. We were having people attend post-secondary institutions part time and fewer people would be attending full time. One of the reasons, I believe, for this trend was the fact people could not afford to go to school full time. They had to hold jobs. They flipped burgers, they did part-time jobs so that they could in fact afford to go to university or college. What we are trying to do is by decreasing tuition, by providing some bursaries, by providing some assistance, is make post-secondary school and education affordable. By that, we will have that trained, talented workforce that will make the economy strong. It will be the engine for our future. So what we are doing is we are doing what governments should do, and that is provide the infrastructure, provide the education that will make our province strong in the long term.
Some other things I would like to talk about, family services and housing. Here are some of the things I am proud to support again, the Healthy Child Initiative. Every study, and I repeat, every study I have seen shows that if you put good prenatal care, if you could do good child care, if you have good inputs for young children, what will happen is it will pay huge dividends in the future. Most studies say 10 to 1 benefit so that every dollar you put in is worth at least $10 in trying to clean up the mess if you do not do it right in the first place.
What we are doing in Family Services is investing in child care. I am really pleased that we have a huge percentage increase in child care. Why? Because these people who are working in the child care front had not received a decent raise for over a decade. These are the people who care for our children, who care for our future, and they deserve to have a decent living. These are the people who dedicate their lives to educating the future. So I am really pleased about the child care. I am pleased about the Healthy Child Initiative, the Prenatal Nutrition Program, the Parent-Child Centres.
Research again has shown across the world that if you work with the parent and the child in a full community of learners, of educators, creating a nurturing environment, what will happen is that you will have huge, huge benefits from that sort of system. What I am pleased with is our government has looked at the research, has looked at the reality from the across the world and has said that what we are going to do is invest in the future, invest in our children and invest properly in Manitoba.
Some of the things that we are doing in child care are increasing the spaces, allowing for increased wages, allowing for increased training opportunities, and actually supporting the entire system. We are doing it in co-operation with the child care groups, and that is very, very important.
We are also allowing for increased access to child care for people with disabilities. That is all very positive. A few years ago the National Child Benefit program from the federal government was trying to create some support for families. What they did was they provided money to low-income people so they could improve their standard of living. The previous government clawed back that benefit. What we are doing is giving them a $20 increase for children under 6 so that they can have a few more dollars. That is very, very critical when you have a very small income. I am pleased with that.
Neighbourhoods Alive!, restoring neighbourhoods, will support all of Manitobans. Some people may ask: Why should we support the interior part of our communities in Thompson, in Brandon, in Winnipeg? What it is is that if we do not, then what we are doing is we are destroying the tax base for the whole province. What we have to do is bring the whole tax base up, and we can do this by improving the quality of housing, by improving the standards of the housing so that the inner city does not go and have a 50% evaluation decrease. What we want to do is keep the valuations of the inner city up there to make the inner city a desirable location so that people go there and so the buildings are not empty, so they are not burned down. What we do is by increasing the value of the centre part of the city, we make sure that the outskirts, the suburbs, the communities, have a decent tax base. If we allow the centre part of the city to burn or to be ignored, the tax rates will go down and the suburbs will pay more taxes. If we want to keep fair taxes, as the members opposite often say, what we have to do is invest in all areas of the province, in all areas.
Neighbourhoods Alive! will invest in the core, will invest in areas so that we bring the tax base up so that it is equitably distributed, and that is critical.
I also love the idea of children and youth in the Lighthouse systems. In my former life, when I was working for Frontier School Division, a lot of what we did was we did community access programs where people in the community use the schools after hours. I have a philosophy. A busy kid is a good kid. So when you have activities like school plays, when you have gym nights, when you open the facilities for kids, what you do is you then create an environment where kids are busy. They are not getting into trouble. Then, instead of having huge costs in justice, instead of having huge costs in cleaning up the mess, what you do is you provide positive experiences for kids. It is proactive, it is intelligent activities.
The other thing that I really like, the fellows opposite often talk about economics, and I am pleased to talk a little bit about economics. Firstly, we are talking about promoting new leading industries in the economy, and they talk about being proactive. The first thing on proactive is we have continued to decrease the business tax. We have also continued things like the Crocus Fund, ENSIS Fund, et cetera. We are also expanding the Manitoba bonds. We are also expanding areas of targeted initiatives for specific high-value industry, and that is critical. Rather than spread the money around to many different industries, some with not very high value-added, but by targeting to value-added you are increasing our tax base. I would like to talk about what has happened in the last little while.
You have New Flyer that has 3300 buses on order. You have Motor Coach with $726 million worth of orders. You have Hydro that is doing a very good job and is a very good corporation that we are all proud of. You have Standard Aero that has just finished a contract. You have Boeing which is doing very, very well, is in Assiniboia constituency, does employ many thousands of people, and is a well-run company. You have Bristol Aerospace, again, a world leader in aerospace technology. Vansco Electronics, which has expanded from a very small operation to a huge operation has just completed a $12.4 million plant expansion. You have Inco that is expanding, HBM&S that has just invested $359 million. You have Western Glove expansion. You have–some of my favourite–Fort Garry Brewery, Agassiz, et cetera, that again are expanding and showing great growth and good stock prices. Mind Computer, again, is expanding.
You have all these companies that are doing well, and they are doing well because we have a good skilled workforce, a good tax structure, good incentives for business, and we will continue those. I have to admit, it is interesting to note that over the last decade most of those years had a net decrease of population. Since the NDP Government was elected, we have had an increase in population every month. I am proud to say that.
Let us talk about immigration. At the Century Summit, which was a very, very good co-operative effort, again, it is important to do things co-operatively so it had business, labour, all sorts of groups there that worked co-operatively and gave a report. Most of the items of the report were addressed positively. One of the things that they did say was the trained workforce, the infrastructure were critical and we are working to address those. They also talked a little bit about immigration, and we are addressing that, which I am pleased to say. But in order to have the economic well-being, every jurisdiction, including the Conference Board of Canada, including the Business Council, say that the No. 1 thing is a good quality workforce and that is what we are going to do as a government.
Other things that we have done tax-wise is we have done a property tax rebate to renters and homeowners. This is income tax relief. Again, as I explained, what is important about it is that you can target it to the people who need it the most. So the seniors who are on fixed incomes, the ones who have the $20,000-$25,000 income and previously have had their taxes go up every year $50, $75, $80 every year, I am pleased to say that, because of our tax rebate, I got a phone call and the guy said, oh, my taxes went up $3. He said I cannot believe it. He says it is less than McDonald's. I was pleased about that, because what they are saying is that one person phoned and said they had a tax increase of $3. That is probably the smallest tax increase they have seen in a decade, and I am pleased because what that means is that seniors can then stay in their homes. They can afford to stay in their homes, people on fixed incomes can, people who are on low incomes stay in a decent house.
The other thing that is neat is that our $75 tax rebate did not go to the owners. It also goes to renters besides owners. So what happens is that the average person who is renting a house, the people who are starting off–and the members opposite often say, oh, what are you doing to the young people. Well, by giving young people who actually statistically are in rental properties more than anyone else, we are giving them a targeted $75 increase and another $75 the following year. So we are targeting tax decreases to the people who are in the lowest income levels, not the highest income levels, but the lowest, and the fixed-income people. The other thing that I am really proud to see is that we have addressed the pension liabilities in deficit. I wanted to go into that a little bit. Previous governments, for the last 20 years, have ignored the pension liability. This is something that will continue to grow until it reaches about $8 billion. That is more than we owe now. So what we have to do is address this pension liability, and I am pleased to say that we started something again that the members opposite would be probably too embarrassed to ever change in 12, 16 years, if they form government. What we are doing is we are setting up a program where we are putting some money into pension liability. Now, for those of you who are not financial planners, I thought I would give you some information, free information. When the province borrows, they borrow at about 6 percent. Then what happens is that if you take the investment of the pension money in the TRAF or the superannuation board, they earn between 8 percent and 10 percent. Well, if I could take a billion dollars and pay 6 percent interest on it and earn 8 percent or 9 percent or 10 percent investment income on it, it means that I am making a spread of between 2 percent and 4 percent. On a billion dollars, that is considerable. If you take that money over 20 years, you are talking hundreds of million dollars ahead. That is a crucial economic decision.
So, rather than just paying off your debts, you are talking about liabilities, and I will give you an example of that. If you stood there and you had a house and a person who has a house, and they never paid a cent down in their pension, they never invested in RSP and they never paid into their pension fund, all they did was pay down their mortgage. So, at the end of 30 years, yes, they would be living free, but at the end of 30 years they would have no income. This budget allows for us to plan for our income, which allows us to plan for RSP and our long-term investment and our future, while paying down debts. And it makes lots of sense to the average Manitoban.
Now the Member for Lac du Bonnet (Mr. Praznik) stated in the Legislature yesterday that half the reserve would be used for tax cuts. I think it is important to review what this quarter billion dollars actually means. The Health Sciences Centre budget for 1998-99 was $258,549,000, give or take a few thousand dollars. What that would mean is we would close Health Sciences Centre if we were to give that money, $250 million, back to the taxpayer. That would mean we would close the largest health care institution in the province.
Let us talk about long-term health care. The long-term health care budget, 1998-99, was again about $258 million. We would close all long-term care in this province if we did not have that income, or Misericordia Health Centre, budget $48 million. What is the closure of Grace or Misericordia or the Health Sciences Centre actually worth? Is it worth the $5 or $6 or $7 per month that a person would receive in extra tax rebates? We are not talking more tax, we are talking less tax rebates. I will tell you the person who is having the heart attack or the person who is having back surgery or the person who is having the baby, or whatever it is, wants to have health care. If you walk there and a person got hit by a car and they say, sorry, we do not have any room, can you come back Wednesday? I do not think they would be worried about the $8 a month. I think the seniors, I think the average Manitoban, when they need the health care system, do not mind that extra $5 or $6 less in tax rebates.
Just to give you an example of what a quarter billion dollars equates to, the total university grants last year were $231 million. So, giving no money to any university would have meant that we still would not have made up for the $250 million of extra tax rebates that the members opposite are advocating. The departments of Justice and Labour combined is $243.7 million. Again, that would not make up for the tax cut.
What I am saying to you is that we want to be reasonable. We want a balanced budget that continues to pay down our mortgage. We want good health care that is available for everyone at no cost, unlike Alberta. We want a home care system where if people and seniors need help, they can get it, they can get the support they need to stay in their homes to live a good, productive life. We want a good education system that is affordable, where we are training for the future. We want decent college spaces. We want good infrastructure, which means things like expanding the Internet, the roads, everything else. We want support for industry. We want support for innovations in high value-added areas. We want support for families. I am really proud of what we are doing insofar as families and children. It is a very good budget on that.
Support for communities, again, we give money. We are one of the few provinces that give money directly to communities from general revenues. That is something not many people know about. We want reasonable tax reductions. This budget does that. Fifteen thousand fewer people, low-income people, are on the tax rolls. That means they are not being taxed. When this government says that the average person is paying more, no, 15 000 will not be on the tax rolls. Seniors, I have done multiple calculations with seniors on my computer, on the Internet. I have not seen where one senior has had an increase. They have all had decreases, everyone I have calculated at this point.
There are decreases for families. Members opposite say you do not take total cost of living into calculations. I would like to compare. If a welder or a plumber or an electrician or a government worker or a bank worker lived in Winnipeg versus living in Toronto, versus living in Vancouver, if you take the total standard of living, I know that Manitoba has one of the highest standards of living comparatively to anyone. It has one of the best environments to grow up in. I am proud of that.
The other thing is that it should be a fair tax. The members opposite had stated that they have gone from 54 to 47 percent in 10 years, about 1 percent a year, a little less. I do not know why they would sit there and say all of a sudden, rather than continue a nice reasonable trend, why should we take a huge tax cut in one year. What we should be is reasonable. The trick is to invest in the future. Nobody would sell their house, and then say, I am going to have nothing for 15 years.
What we want to do is have investment in the future. Build the personal care homes. Invest in education. Invest in the infrastructure. It is investments. The members opposite should know that it is crucial to invest so that you can get long-term gains. This budget is investing. Again, the tax burden is also going down. I am pleased abut that.
I look at this and I say that we have a budget that addresses all the concerns, the health and wellness. I look at the children, I look at the business investment, I look at the university, and I look at the standard of living in Manitoba. I am proud to be part of a government that has addressed one of the best or presented one of the best budgets I have ever seen, because it is balanced, and, yes, I have read previous budgets. It is responsible. It is intelligent. It has addressed some long-term concerns that most governments have not had the ability to deal with, especially the pension liability. I believe that looking down at all the cases, I think it is a very, very balanced and positive budget that I can support. I think it provides a vision where what we are doing is we are showing where we are going. We are investing in the future and making a good, solid investment for all of Manitobans.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
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