EFEATS CLARK’S BUDGET no. Is this the kind of price increase that is going to have an effect, or hurt Mr. Lawyer Jones? No, he will not feel it or, if he feels it, he will not feel it as much, and that is the definition of a regressive tax. A regressive tax, to putit quitesimply,isa tax which hurts some people more than others, and this tax hurts the poor people, the working people and the middle income people, far more than it hurts the lawyers, the doctors, and the accountants. The Christmas message from St. John’s West is quite simple. It is an old message; to them that hath it shall be given. Perhaps we could put the lesson another way. If you drink, don’t smoke; if yousmoke, don’t drive; if you drive, don’t drink; if you drive, smoke and drink, don’t think, because if you think you will wonder why you ever voted Conservative in the last election! What I have said about Mr. and Mrs. Jones is so much more true of the farmer, and is so much more true of the unemploy- ment insurance payee who is now being asked to pay more through a completely regressive tax. It is a tax that is not progres- sive, a tax that does not get higher as your income gets higher. Imagine the effect on a group whom we ignore in this House far too much, the six million Canadians who live in poverty; those people who, because of age, because of circumstances, because of region, because of the peculiarities of history, because of the marvels of the market system, which is the sine qua non of the party opposite, have competed in our society, and, when the race was over, have lost. Those are the people, and there are millions of them — young and old — who are, to put it bluntly, getting a kick in the teeth from the Conservative Party of Canada through the budget which was presented last night. When we look at the over-all effects of this budget, they include a dramatic redistribu- tion of wealth toward certain provinces, redistribution of wealth toward certain classes, and redistribution of wealth toward certain companies. That is the nature of this government’s energy policy. There was a great deal of comment when my leader got up today, as we expected there would be, and pointed out that of this $90 billion which was being collected $40 billion will go to the producing provinces, $33 billion will go to the multinational oil companies, and $17 billion will go to the national government. Of that $17 billion, asmall fraction will go to the national energy fund. The second thing about this budget is that it is a redefinition or a clarifying of the role of government in our society. It is a redefini- tion which ignores the economic, social, and political revolutions of our time. That revolution is that people will no longer accept being treated as commodities in our society, to be traded, shipped, transferred, and paid for as though they were another commodity. With a reduction in the role of the govern- ment in the conomy such as predicted over the five-year period by the Conservative party, the growth and expansion of large multinational companies, which will be subsidized again as they were subsidized in the past by the Liberal party, will continue. The Liberal party has presided over the sell-out of Canada to these multinational companies. It is something of an irony to hear these reborn, new born, born again Liberals, as if that party sprang immaculate from the loins of the hon. member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray) on May 28, 1979. That party has a history which the people of Canada will not readily forget. Whether they are left, right, or centre, they have presided over the economic sell-out of our country, and that is a lesson which no Canadian will readily forget. Finally, the element in this budget which is the most unacceptable to most Canadians is the unfairness or the problem of equity. The challenge of the the crisis of the 1980s, if there is an economic crisis and an energy crisis — and we accept the fact that there is and are not doubting for a moment that there are very serious problems with energy and within our economy — and if anelection must be fought onthis issue then let it be so — 1s who will bear the sacrifices of the 1980s. Will it be the members of the Empire Club, whom the Minister of Finance is so happy to inform that they will have to tighten their belts as they dig into another course? Are those the people who will be making the sacrifices in our society? I suggest not. I suggest that the people who are being asked in this budget to make the biggest, the most important, and the most difficult sacrifices, are those who can least afford to do so. None of us like the fact that the Liberal party has left us with a. gigantic deficit. as a result of the extraordinary tax policies they followed, the incredible expenditures they allowed, and the pork-barrelling which was the defining quality of the Liberal party. When the tomb of the Liberal party is built, a large statue of Mirabel will be placed on it. That represents the worst form of public spending that we have seen. There are alternatives to the policies of this government, Mr. Speaker. This is the last time we should be taking Canada ona forced march to a reduced deficit of $4 or $5 billion in 1984. On the government’s own figures, this will lead to unemployment of 7.5 per cent, which is an increase. Inflation will remain at exactly the level it is at now, but next year will be higher. We have to ask ourselves what we are getting. We are getting Herbert Hoover and R. B. Bennett, but I do not see any advantage to the policy. This minister says that we have terrible unemployment and terrible inflation in Canada and that we need a five-year plan to deal with these horrendous problems. But with this five-year plan we find we have exactly the same inflation and the same unemployment as there is now. If that is the kind of long march the minister now wants to take us on, I suggest he put on his mukluks and head off by himself. He will not be followed by the rest of the Canadian people. In closing remarks, the minister men- tioned his grandfather, I should like to mention my gransfather. Seventy years ago he came to Canada as an immigrant, worked hard, fought in a war, suffered through a depression. Were he alive today, I doubt very much that he would find any- thing has changed in the sonsecutive budgets produced by Liberal and Conserva- tive governments. I should like to recite to hon. members a poem by T. S. Eliot which goes as follows: Though you have shelters and institutions, Precarious lodgings while the rent is paid, Subsiding basements were the rat breeds Or sanitary dwellings with numbered doors Or a house a little better than your neighbour’s; When the Stranger says: ‘‘What is the meaning of this city Do you huddle close together because you love each other?’ What will you answer? ‘We all dwell together To make money from each other’? or ‘This is a community’? I see the minister with his usual knowledge and common sense has a comment. I should like to tell him where I first saw this poem. It was in a United Auto Workers’ hall in Port Elgin, Ontario. If he wants to go and see it himself, he can. The message that came from that union movement is one with which Iam not the least bit ashamed to associate myself. It is: What will you answer? ‘We all dwell together To make money from each other’? or ‘This is a community’? Let me suggest that there is a very clear alternative to the policy of this government, which is about to be defeated, and that alternative is a policy which recognizes that Canada is a community — not acommunity of communities only, but a community. Itis a community in which the critical question in the 1980s will be: are we simply here “‘to make money from each other” or are we here to do something different? In the policies which this party suggested during the election campaign, such asacost of living tax credit, the need for an indus- trial strategy, the importance of-providing jobs for Canadians and looking at the real health of the economy, and not some abstractions which so upset hon. members opposite, we have suggested that there is an alternative to the policies of the govern- ment. That alternative is the social demo- cratic alternative. Let me suggest that between the new conservatism and the new democracy there is no middle ground. It has something which my friends to the far right in the Liberal party are quickly going to discover, that there is a message in this budget — the government has thrown down the gauntlet, the government has waved its flag and said, “We dare you in these trying political times, with the resignation of the leader of the Liberal party, to oppose the policies with which we want to take Canada into the eighties.” We accept that challenge,Mr. Speaker. We accept it happily. We accept it with confidence and with vigour, because we are convinced that the message con- tained in this budget is a message of injus- tice. It is a mean message, not a generous or compassionate message; it is a message which will be rejected by the Canadian people because it is so mean and not compassionate. Mr. Speaker, I therefore move, seconded by the Hon.member for Winni- peg North Centre (Mr. Knowles): That the amendment be amended by changing the period at the end thereof to a comma, and by adding immediately thereafter the following words: and this House unreservedly con- demns the government for its out- right betrayal of its election prom- ises to lower interest rates, to cut taxes, and to simulate the growth of the Canadian economy, without a mandate from the Canadian peo- ple for such a reversal.