Mr. Peter Dyck (Pembina): I have been listening with interest to the debate following this our government's fourth consecutive balanced budget, and I am concerned the NDP are having difficulty with their numbers. I believe my comments can be of service in setting forth an honest commentary for the public. The member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) said, "What is so magical about balancing the budget every year anyway?"
I agree wholeheartedly with my esteemed colleagues. Balanced budgets are not magical. Indeed, if anything is magical it is that the NDP government in only six years tripled the debt it took the previous 112 years to accumulate. What is magical is that, as a result, interest payments quadrupled and taxes spiralled out of control. It is precisely the kind of magic espoused by the members opposite that our government, through balanced budgets, will ensure is not repeated. Manitobans do not want or need NDP magic such as: abracadabra, look, we raised our taxes 22 times in five years.
Madam Speaker, members opposite have made the claim that our increased funding to health care is the result of a physical slight of hand. Now, while it has been a few years since I sat in the classroom, I know that $1.93 billion subtracted from last year's budget of $1.83 billion equals a spending increase of $100 million.
Madam Speaker, it is precisely because of the lack of math skills of members opposite that our government has instituted standards testing. We are committed to ensuring our children have the skills necessary to compete and succeed in the global economy. Our 1998-99 budget was prepared with the interests of Manitobans in mind. We did not balance the books and begin paying down the debt for members opposite but because of them. It is because of their mismanagement of our economy during the 1980s that Manitobans demand responsibility and accountability in their government. We have delivered. Thank you.
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, what this government has delivered in this budget is the most outrageous series of misleading statements that I have ever read in a budget.
Madam Speaker, on the Finance minister's own numbers, not on numbers that have been analyzed or changed by anybody or with assumptions in them, simply on his own numbers he is trying to tell the people of Manitoba that there will be no revenue growth for his government in the new year for which the budget is now being debated.
Madam Speaker, this is surely one of the most outrageous cases of attempting to suck and blow at the same time. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) stands in his place and talks about booming economy, growing employment, which of course is not true either. He talks about how wonderful things are, and he presents a budget with no new revenues in it. He attempts to fudge that by pretending he will draw a hundred million dollars on his stabilization fund in the year we are now ending and only 60 million next year. Well, is that not a wonderful thing. The rainy day fund of the province, so called, the stabilization fund that was to protect us from downturns in our economy is being drawn while the Finance minister stands in his place and saying things have never been better. What prudent Finance minister would draw down his savings account while he stands on his feet and tells us how wonderful things are? Is that a prudent Finance minister? No, that is a Finance minister who built a distortion into his budget in the form of revenue numbers that are so understated as to be ludicrous. This budget is full of misleading information.
Mr. Mervin Tweed (Turtle Mountain): Madam Speaker, the purpose behind the current budget debates is to bring forward ideas and discuss them. However, there is one idea put forward by the members opposite during their annual convention last fall that has been notably absent in their speeches, the proposed NDP resolution stating: Therefore be it resolved that the next NDP government bring forth legislation whereby workers would receive 40 hours pay for 32 hours work.
Despite a unanimous vote of the NDP convention delegates supporting this policy, I have yet to see one member opposite rise in the House to enlighten us as to the economic benefits. While members opposite have been strangely silent about this new policy, Manitobans have not. A spokesman for the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce termed it utterly unrealistic. The chamber noted that the NDP had not given any calculation of the number of new jobs the four-day workweek would create, much less an estimate of how many jobs would be lost by such a measure. The resolution is just too extreme and too costly. That is from the Portage Daily Graphic.
The NDP is still the party that believes government can do no wrong and business can do no right. It is also the party that believes the government's sole purpose is to spend more of everything and stick someone else with the bill. That is from the Winnipeg Free Press.
The one quote, Madam Speaker, that struck me the most was from the Thompson Citizen. The Thompson Citizen newspaper states: The 32-hour workweek would sink most Manitoba business firms. The New Democrats have adopted a formula that will drive industries right out of our province. The NDP seem to be stuck in the policy era where they were 20 years ago.
I do not want to be accused of stifling debate, Madam Speaker, so I encourage all members opposite to rise and speak on this new policy.
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Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Madam Speaker, the fact is that Manitoba is not an economic island unto itself. We are part of the prairie economy. We are indeed part of the national economy, the North American economy. We have had some economic growth, but not everyone has shared in this growth, and we do know of many Manitobans who are looking for good jobs who cannot find them. That is the reality.
If you listen to people and you go out to the community, you will find there are just too many jobs, too many low-paying jobs, too many minimum-wage jobs, too many part-time jobs. The fact is that the recent data that we referred to in the Question Period this morning does show some current weakness in the labour force and in the employment growth. We have to ask ourselves, if we want to be truthful, why is there this weakening in the growth of the labour force. That comes about because people get discouraged; if they cannot find jobs they leave the labour force and you see that shrinking.
This problem, I believe, has been demonstrated in the interprovincial migration statistics which very surprisingly increased sharply last year. They indeed were dropping for a number of years, but last year interprovincial migration grew by 5,000. There were 5,000 people who left the province on a net basis. That is two and a half times the number of 1996--a very sharp increase in net outward migration.
Where are they going? Alberta, B.C., but even Saskatchewan. Almost 800 people left to go to Saskatchewan, and that is unusual because we are usually the net recipient of people from the province of Saskatchewan. This time we have a reversal. So it would seem to me that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) and the government should be concerned as to what is currently happening. I emphasize the words "currently happening," and why is it? They will have to answer the question why it is we are losing so many people, 5,000 people, to the rest of the country. Thank you, Madam Speaker.