Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for LaVerendrye (Mr. Sveinson):

"WHEREAS the Manitoba government's balanced budget law has been praised by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation as 'model' legislation that should be adopted by other governments; and

"WHEREAS by controlling spending, not raising taxes, the 1995 Progressive Conservative budget was the first balanced budget in Manitoba in 23 years; and

"WHEREAS recognizing the economic adversities of debt servicing, the act establishes a Debt Retirement Fund earmarking a minimum amount of money to be paid into the fund every year starting in 1997-98; and

"WHEREAS taxpayer protection provisions prevent increases in major taxes unless the taxpayers give their approval in a referendum.

"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the provincial government be commended on its innovative legislation, which has benefited all Manitobans because it has helped to create a competitive business climate instrumental to attracting world-class companies."

Motion presented.

Mr. Helwer: It is really an honour to speak in support of this resolution because few laws passed by this Legislature, or any other for that matter, can truly be described as historic, but The Balanced Budget, Debt Repayment and Taxpayer Protection Act of 1995 clearly deserves such a designation.

First of all, it is an historic act because it brought an end to the 22 years of reliance of deficit financing. [interjection]

That is right. The member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) talks about the good things we are doing.

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It is also an historic act because it proclaimed a halt to the steady increases in the burden of debt which we were leaving for our children and our grandchildren to shoulder. It is an historic act because it is a blueprint which will guide our fiscal policies in this province for many years to come, ensuring that the weight of debt which is bearing down on the future of our youth will be removed.

It is an historic act because, for the first time in Canada, it gave the taxpayers of this province assurance that they will have the right to say yea or nay to any proposal to increase the rate of any of the major taxes. So it is a historic act because no other act of this Legislature has been so widely cited as a model for other governments.

Madam Speaker, let us not forget the circumstances in which the balanced budget legislation was passed. Over the preceding two decades, Manitoba, like most governments in Canada, ran nonstop deficits, and it did not matter whether they were good times or bad, whether the economy was strong or not, governments simply chose to spend more than they took in each and every year, especially during the years when the opposition was the government between '81 and '88.

But it was not always this way. For about three decades after the last World War, Canadian governments were committed to fiscal responsibility. Sometimes they ran deficits, but these were always offset by surpluses in other years, and as a result, Madam Speaker, the total amount of government debt actually declined. So it is no coincidence that the economy was generally very prosperous during this period.

However, starting in the mid-'70s, the deficits began to pile up, and the problem was most serious from 1981 to 1987, Madam Speaker, when Manitoba's debt burden increased fivefold. Between '81 and '87, Manitoba's debt burden increased fivefold in just seven short years--five times in seven short years. Can you imagine that? As a direct consequence, the cost of servicing this debt soared. Manitoba taxpayers were paying only $100 million in interest costs in 1980, but by 1994 they were paying $600 million, and these debt costs rose so rapidly under the previous administration that they also had to impose the biggest tax increases Manitobans have ever seen.

These higher taxes did not provide more services to Manitobans. They merely paid the skyrocketing interest on the debt. The 1980s clearly showed that deficits are not a substitute for tax increases. They merely forestall the increase for a few years, and when they eventually become unavoidable the tax increases are much bigger than they should have been because a bigger interest bill has accumulated. Clearly, rising debt was a real threat to our valued social programs. The debt forced an increasing amount of government revenue to be diverted away from the services for people, such as health care, education and family services, and toward interest payments. Deficits did not make Manitobans any better off, not at all.

Based on this bitter experience, the majority of Manitobans know this is exactly what happened, and they want the government of Manitoba to balance the books, pay down the debt and hold the line on taxes. It was not easy for our government to bring the province's budget back into balance faced as we were with a huge interest bill and the taxes which were already the limit of taxpayers' willingness and ability to pay. But we did balance the books, and we have kept it balanced for three consecutive years. The balanced budget legislation, this ensures that this achievement is preserved.

Madam Speaker, all governments in Canada got themselves into trouble in the eighties by running up deficits, the debt and by increasing taxes, but Manitoba was a leader in restoring a balance to the books and a firm sense of priorities in spending. We continue to provide leadership by passing not only the first but certainly the strongest and most comprehensive balanced budget legislation in the country and possibly in North America. That is why our legislation attracted such widespread attention and praise.

Allow me to remind you, Madam Speaker, of some of the things that people outside of this province had to say about this legislation. The Financial Post published an editorial entitled Manitoba shows the way, which said: Premier Filmon and his Tory government deserve full marks for proposing a balanced budget law with teeth.

Canada West Foundation prepared an analysis of the balanced budget legislation in the four provinces which had such laws at the time, and the foundation awarded Manitoba an A-plus. In contrast, Alberta received a B, Saskatchewan a C and New Brunswick an F. That is the other Liberal government there in New Brunswick.

The International Centre for the Study of Public Debt stated: The government of Manitoba will soon have the best balanced budget law in Canada. In one piece of legislation, Manitoba's law should ensure that the provincial debt will be eliminated over a period of time and that the tax burden does not increase. The features of the proposed Manitoba law are worth studying and adopting by other governments in Canada if they are serious about deficit and debt elimination.

The newspaper of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said: Manitoba may be the only place in the country where taxpayers will have really protection in the future. Manitoba Taxpayers Association provincial director, Peter Holle, he praised the balanced budget act as model legislation for the rest of the country. The Manitoba legislation is by far the most comprehensive legislation in the country, and it shows that governments are starting to make taxpayers' concerns a priority.

Catherine Swift, who is the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said: Manitoba has clearly broken new ground with the toughest balanced budget legislation in the country, and it should serve very much as a model for other jurisdictions.

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If you heard the leader of the federal Conservative Party, Mr. Charest, he said that if he is elected he will not only balance the books but he will bring in balanced budget legislation similar to what we have in Manitoba. Mr. Charest, yes, one of his new planks in his campaign, he will bring in balanced budget legislation for Canada. That would certainly help the federal situation and also restore the payments for health and education and family services back to the provinces, so that we can continue to provide the benefits that people need for the social programs.

Some of the benefits that we are receiving from this balanced budget legislation is the jobs that we are creating in Manitoba because of this, because we have removed the payroll tax off of the majority of businesses in Manitoba. The payroll tax we eliminated for 90 percent of the companies in Manitoba. By taking off this payroll tax, we created a climate in Manitoba where companies--

An Honourable Member: The climate is really great.

Mr. Helwer: It is great. Jobs are growing; it is great. We created a climate in Manitoba where companies could expand and provide jobs.

As an example, I want to tell you about a couple of businesses in the Gimli constituency, one located in Gimli, Faroex, which is run by Ken Church, owned and operated by Ken Church. He produces with the pultrusion method of plastic, he provides or manufactures hog penning, belts for skidoos and things of that nature. He has been very, very successful. He has expanded about three times in the last few years and just recently has put in some new equipment and hired some 30 new people whereby he will have some 130 or 140 people working for him. He will be the largest employer in Gimli, larger than Seagram.

An Honourable Member: Did he pay tax for everything or did he borrow the money?

Mr. Helwer: He paid tax for everything. You do not have to worry about him. No grants there either, no interest-free grants there either. He expanded on his own. He is an entrepreneur. He is doing very well.

Another item of--thank you, Madam Speaker, I have a couple of minutes left. I just want to talk about one other business that has just recently shown some growth in Manitoba. That is, the federal government had a fish hatchery out in the Gunton area that they were using for research for many years, about 20 years. A company out of Saskatchewan purchased this fish hatchery and is expanding, and they are growing. They are going to grow trout and Arctic char there. They started off with about 15 employees. I think they are now up to between 30 and 40. Within two years, they will have 200 employees there. [interjection] Coming to Manitoba, that is exactly right.

But here is an innovative industry growing the fish and producing a market, although aquaculture which fish farming is called has had some difficult times on the west coast and the east coast, but here in Manitoba it has everything going for it. We have the water; we have the energy; we have the hydroelectric generating station that provides the power for us. We have all the things that are necessary to make this company successful, and I certainly want to wish this company well. I hope they are successful.

So, Madam Speaker, this House should not fail to do what others have already done, and that is to commend the government of Manitoba for adopting The Balanced Budget, Debt Repayment and Taxpayer Protection Act, so I therefore encourage all members to adopt this resolution. Thank you.

Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, first, the member makes a rather disastrous error when he compares historic to beneficial. World War I was historic, not necessarily beneficial. The bubonic plague is a matter of history, not necessarily beneficial. So, first of all, the member should not suggest that benefit is the same as history. Indeed, the balanced budget act as conceived by this government is historic. The question is, is it beneficial? So let us just take a minor tour of this government's experience with financial management.

Madam Speaker, it is a matter now of absolutely public record that in 1988-89 the Auditor, the Finance minister, his own reports show there was a surplus, $58 million. That is what this government inherited. Now, when the Pawley government came into power, we were headed into a recession, and we had a $250-million deficit from the Sterling Lyon government, the biggest deficit then in Manitoba's history. We left, not entirely of our own doing. We know that. The events of the year conspired to produce a surplus in 1988-89, well attested to by all parties. The Dominion Bond Rating Service, the Minister of Finance's own books, the Auditor, they all say there was a surplus. So what did these saviours of the public finance do? They took the surplus and they went to their banker and they said: Loan us some money.

They said, loan us some money, Madam Speaker, so we can create a deficit here where there was a surplus, and we will create something called the Fiscal Stabilization Fund. We will take some of the money out of our surplus and we will put it in this fund, and we will call it a Fiscal Stabilization Fund. The minister, who is standing in the House, knows what the Auditor thought of that. The Auditor thought, not to put too fine a point on it, that was terrible accounting, that did not reflect reality, and the Auditor said so. The Auditor said this Finance minister's predecessor was not accounting properly for the finances of the province.

Now, what did they do, Madam Speaker, from the time that they had a $58-million surplus? Forward a few years. What did they do? Well, they ran deficits the likes of which this province has never seen. Only their counterpart in Saskatchewan, the Devine government, only that government ran a larger per capita deficit than this province did. How did they disguise their deficit? With the self-same Fiscal Stabilization Fund. What did they do with that fund? In the middle of having the worst experience that any government in this province has ever had with a deficit, $766 million in 1992-93, did they let that deficit stand as it truly was? Oh no.

They took some money out of this mythical Fiscal Stabilization Fund and said our deficit is really $200 million less. What did the accountants say about that? Well, the Dominion Bond Rating Service said, no. No, your deficit really was $766 million, and if you go to Volume 3 it was over $800 million, and the $200 million that you transferred really belonged to another year. Dominion Bond Rating Service is very clear about that, Madam Speaker. They did the same thing in a number of different years, transferring money in and out of the Fiscal Stabilization Fund to make the bottom line look better than it was, or sometimes worse than it was. When they did not want to show too big an improvement they took some money out and stuffed it into the Fiscal Stabilization Fund.

When they were coming up to an election, these guardians of the public purse, these fiscally pure types, what did they do? They found a lottery sock. They found a sock full of loonies stuffed over in the Lotteries Corporation, and my goodness it had $145 million in it. Now that is a lot of loonies. What did they do with it? They said it is election time, Madam Speaker, it is time for--[interjection] Pardon?

An Honourable Member: The first time they would not spend it.

Mr. Sale: Oh, that is right. The first thing was they had their hand up saying we will not spend it. Absolutely, it is safe. By April '95, there was a desperate public purpose for this money. It was called re-election. We will save the Jets and we will balance the budget. Neither one turned out to be true, as the Auditor pointed out, but there you are, $145 million in the loonies lottery fund came flooding into the public purse to balance the budget.

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Now, Madam Speaker, this same Finance minister that is in office today told Manitobans that all of the lottery funds would be transferred. All of the money would now go directly into general revenues. There would not be anything left. Well, I guess he must have just forgotten that day that there was in fact $32 million still in that trust fund, and when is it coming out? This year. So we have another little piece of revenue coming out this year that will enhance the revenues so that this year we will have yet another little surplus. If it were not for the debt repayment schedule the minister would not have had to borrow from his Fiscal Stabilization Fund another $100 million this year in order to avoid running--horror of horrors--a deficit in which he would have to actually cut his salary. So what did he do? He dipped into his slush fund and pulled out $100 million. This is the government that is so pure and so committed to transparency in public finance that in this year's budget they even changed the headings to confuse people. They changed the footnotes to confuse people. They moved numbers from the Fiscal Stabilization up into general revenue and pretended that the hundred million dollars they were taking this year out of their Fiscal Stabilization Fund was general revenue. General revenue flowing in in this fiscal year? No, absolutely not. It comes out of the Fiscal Stabilization Fund accumulated surplus. They changed the accounting, because to do it in a transparent and correct manner would have tipped off everybody to the fact that this budget was not balanced. It required a withdrawal from the Fiscal Stabilization Fund in order to make it appear balanced, but it was not balanced.

Let us talk about the record of Conservatives in public finance. What government in Canada nearly defaulted on its total public debt? The government of Grant Devine. Why is there no room in Saskatchewan's jails today? Because most of them are occupying space there. The government of Grant Devine ran the public debt of Saskatchewan to the highest per capita of any province in Canada. This is the record of Conservative finance in Saskatchewan.

What have they done federally? This member opposite talked about the candidate for Prime Minister, the Honourable Jean Charest, the Leader of the only party in the House of Commons history that achieved gender parity, one of each. This is the minister who said in 1993, we have to cut $8 billion out of public spending, and all of a sudden this year, he is going to put money back into health care. He is going to promise Manitobans and Canadians he is going to have lots of health care, but he is going to cut $12 billion out of something else.

Now what is it he is going to cut $12 billion out of, Madam Speaker? He is not too clear on that, but he is sure that he will find $12 billion that is not needed. Who is he the successor of? The successor of the Right Honourable--in quotation marks--Brian Mulroney. Brian Mulroney, who ran Canada's debt to levels unprecedented in the OECD nations except for the basket case of Italy, we are told [interjection] Yes, it is getting better. Italy is actually improving sharply.

The Conservative record on managing public finance is a really instructive one. The record deficit in Manitoba; the highest per capita debt in Canada, in Saskatchewan; the worst accumulation of debt in any period in Canadian history under the Mulroney government. So this is a government that wants to give lessons on public finance, a government that used the Fiscal Stabilization Fund to hide the true nature of their deficits, that used the Fiscal Stabilization Fund to provide a phoney balanced budget in an election year, that used the Fiscal Stabilization Fund the next year to balance a budget that is not by withdrawing a hundred million dollars and then would not say so but hid it up under general revenues.

Madam Speaker, let us remember that under the Schreyer government, surpluses were run. Let us remember that under the Lloyd government, under the Douglas government, consecutive surpluses year after year after year were run. Public finances were wisely managed by socialist governments in this country. What is so significantly special about a balanced budget act that requires you to sell off the family's silverware to balance your budget?

Last year, this government, against all the advice of its municipal friends, our big union friends, the Union of Manitoba Municipalities, sold off the Manitoba Telephone System, sold it off. What did they do with the proceeds? Well, they paid off a bit of hospital debt, because that is popular, and they stuck the rest of it in the Finance minister's re-election fund, the 1999 re-election fund. Would a family sell off their house to buy food and then say they had a balanced budget? Would any businessman in this room sell off a factory, spend the money on materials to manufacture widgets and claim he had a balanced operation? Absolutely not. Even the simplest business person in this country--and there are not that many that are really simple--knows the difference between capital and operating expenditures. This balanced budget act says you not only have to balance your budget on an operating basis, which, over the business cycle, is a very good idea, it says you have to balance your budget every year, capital and operating.

Now, Madam Speaker, I think the members opposite should take an Economics 101 course, just a basic level course, and understand how money actually comes into being. [interjection] That is true, I guess that is the point. When you clip coupons and inherit your money, you do not have to worry about so much where it comes from. When you have to make it, you have to understand that.

What do the members opposite think would happen if everyone in Canada went to the bank and said: Please give me my money in currency? What would happen, Madam Speaker? Well, what would happen would be that after the first 7 percent of the deposits were withdrawn, there would be no money left. After the first 7 percent of depositor's money was taken out of the major chartered banks and the credit unions of this country, there would be no legal tender left--zero.

Money in a developed economy is a function of the trust of people in that economy. No developed economy could ever function, let alone thrive, without credit, without borrowing, without debt. Members opposite have a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of debt in a developed economy. They seem to think that you have to pay cash on the barrelhead for everything you buy, and yet there is not a business person in this province that would agree with that prehistoric, antedeluvian notion that credit is somehow a bad thing.

If all the members of Canada's chartered banks, all of their clients, simply went and said give me my money, after 7 percent of their deposits were withdrawn, there would be no more money. The legal tender in this country is under $9 billion in circulation at the current time, but the economy of this country is well over a trillion dollars in total in terms of its various forms of debt, various forms of assets, that are in play at any given time.

So the notion that debt itself is a bad thing is so contrary to any developed economy, to the needs of ordinary people, in fact, paying off all debt would stop the economy cold. If members opposite do not understand that, they should take a simple 101 Economics course. You cannot have a modern economy without debt, because our whole economy functions on trust, that the money that has been borrowed will be paid back, that the money that is available to buy assets is loaned at a reasonable rate on reasonable risk principles.

If cash was required, this economy would stop not tomorrow; it would stop before supper tonight. So they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the economy if they think that debt is a bad thing in a developed economy. No businessman--Mr. Penner could not operate his business without a line of credit, without borrowing for capital equipment. This province would be an immensely poorer place if we had not borrowed money to build schools, to build hospitals, to build the facilities that make this a wonderful place to live.

The notion that that is a bad thing is so perverse and so misconstrued as to be absurd. So the balanced budget act is based on an absurdity that debt on behalf of anybody is somehow a bad thing, that the only thing that works is cash on the barrelhead. The minister knows that would stop our economy dead if it was applied as a principle.

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Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise again in this House. I have not stood in my place for a number of weeks or participated in the debates. First of all, I would like to thank all members of the Legislature for giving the kind of consideration and recognition to the difficulties that people in the flood area of the Red River Valley are having, and allowing members like myself to be with our constituents, our families, our friends and our neighbours in this time of need. It was certainly appreciated on my behalf.

I also want to thank the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) for taking time out to come to my constituency, as well as the Premier (Mr. Filmon), and joining the Premier in my constituency to speak directly to people of their needs during this time of distress.

So, to all members of the Legislature, I thank you for that kind of consideration. It certainly speaks well of the co-operation that exists in this Chamber from time to time that is very often not seen outside, and I certainly deeply appreciate those efforts that were made on our behalf.

I have an interest in this piece of legislation, and that is why, Madam Speaker, I asked that I be allowed to speak on balanced budget legislation and the resolution before us. I think it is extremely important to recognize the historical aspects of why this kind of resolution is here today, and it deals with the national security of tenure. That basically means that we should at all times indicate to other countries that we have a stable economy. Security of tenure internationally, in my view, is clearly to demonstrate that to people in other foreign nations who we borrow from from time to time and will keep on borrowing from from time to time, recognizing that there are not only fluctuations in one economy, but there are relevant fluctuations in the needs of the people of a given province such as Manitoba.

We will from time to time use significantly more capital to enhance our ability to serve our people than we do today, and we will also use from time to time capital that we have not got, and therefore we will continue to keep on borrowing. This legislation does not prohibit that, the legislation that we have put forward in Manitoba. The legislation being proposed in this budget does not prohibit that.

So that needs to be clearly understood. I respect and listened very carefully to what the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) said in his remarks, and he is absolutely correct that businesses from time to time, and especially during expansionary modes or expansionary periods, need capital, and therefore they go out and borrow that capital to expand their businesses.

That aspect is substantially different than governing, and that is something that I find that the NDP does not recognize in its fiscal planning and fiscal proposals. I think that was very evident yesterday in the debate we all witnessed and heard last night when the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) put forward their program which indicated clearly that we would have to borrow more money and spend more money, that they thought and that they still think they can borrow themselves out of debt or that they can borrow enough money to spend on job creation that will in the final analysis increase the benefactors or be a beneficiary to the overall economy.

No farm or no business has ever succeeded in doing that. There has been no successful demonstration whereby when one runs a business to the point where it is fiscally impossible to meet its commitments can they go out and borrow themselves out of difficulty. It fiscally does not work.

We recognize that, Madam Speaker. Our government recognized that when we put forward the balanced budget legislation. Not only did we recognize it, we put restraints on ourselves, saying that if we borrowed or spent unscrupulously in a given year, we, as members of government and especially our Executive Council, would be the first to see the benefits of their own action, mainly a reduction in their own salary. That is a fairly strong incentive to keep on balancing your books. Balancing books or budgets is not borrowing no money at all, as the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) would have us believe.

I find very interesting the different philosophies that are expanded in this Chamber from time to time, not only in this Chamber but the different philosophies different parties hold. I think it was demonstrated clearly by the former Premier of the Ontario Legislature when he went out and borrowed huge amounts of money to spend themselves out of debt, to create what? Jobs. In the final analysis, the economy was driven to a state that they could not even keep on employing people, and Ontario become the epitome of financial disaster that this country has ever seen. But the people in that province dealt very harshly with that government, and the current Progressive Conservative government is demonstrating that they can, in fact, put together a plan of fiscal responsibility that will set the stage for economic growth which in the province of Ontario affects the whole country.

So I believe, Madam Speaker, that we should take some lessons from that action. There has been much said about Saskatchewan, and the former Conservative administration in Saskatchewan, I agree that there was not fiscally responsible government under the previous Progressive Conservative government in Saskatchewan. However, let us understand how Saskatchewan arrived at balancing its books.

One of the key things they did which no other province has done--oh, there have been a few administrations in the Maritimes that have done it, but I think the electorate has also dealt harshly with them, but what the Saskatchewan NDP government did was close 58 hospitals in order that they were able to achieve a balanced budget. If you have ever seen a health care system being impacted by financial restraints, just look at Saskatchewan. They demonstrated clearly their ability to balance budgets, but who did they impact the most severely?

When we look back as to why a province such as Manitoba would need the kind of legislation we have put forward, it is clearly demonstrated by the previous action of the Pawley government. When you look at their record, when under Schreyer they had significant surpluses--as a matter of fact they had so much money at times they did not know what to do with it, and they built monstrosities that they did not pay any consideration to in the future as to whether they might, in fact, even have money left over to shingle the roofs when it became necessary.

That is the reality. They became absolute, pure spendthrifts. Well, the taxpayers and the voters of this province dealt very severely with the Schreyer administration, and it took some fairly severe actions by the Conservative government that was elected at that time to bring the whole thing into proper balance again, and I believe that we have demonstrated that we know how to not only run businesses on this side of the House, we have demonstrated that we can actually run and control government spending.

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When you look at the surpluses that were there under Schreyer and when you look at the actions that the next Conservative government had to take when the actions were severe enough on the other side that the electorate chose to go back to the NDP government of Howard Pawley, well, look at that record. It was very similar to Bob Rae's record in Ontario.

The Howard Pawley record speaks for itself. They not only increased taxes to the highest level of any province and anywhere in Canada, and we are still feeling the brunt of that, but they actually increased the deficit from $1 billion to $5 billion during that period of time, even though they drove taxes to historical highs. So what did we end up with? The taxpayers at the end of the day said, we are not going to tolerate this any longer, and they elected Gary Filmon and his crew to take over.

Well, we have very diligently, very diligently, Gary Filmon and his colleagues in this government--and, yes, I would like to call them a crew because it takes a good ship's captain and a good crew to run a sound ship and operate it to ensure that it will arrive safely across an ocean. Well, let me say to you, Madam Speaker, that this captain and this crew have steered this ship Filmon to the other side of the ocean, and we have clearly demonstrated that we can operate a government without debt in a sound, fiscal-managed way.

The honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) talked about casino pride, and he talked about loonies being accumulated. Well, when one looks at the opposition and the word "loonies" is mentioned, one wonders how many each of them have in their pockets because these little things with this little picture on the back of it, you know, are present most of the time in all of our pockets, and one would have to interpret the word correctly in order to assume that the casino that was established by the NDP under a government under Howard Pawley at the Convention Centre and the--[interjection] Yeah, we heard the word, tiny little operation. Those of us who walked through that casino at the Convention Centre were absolutely ashamed at what we saw, and it took Gary Filmon and his good ship crew to change that, to get us out of that messy situation and put the casino in a place where we had some order and where the kids were not playing under the crap tables, as you saw in the Convention Centre.

So I would say, Madam Speaker, that our government stands tall, and we stand proud, and we can expound the virtues of balancing a budget, and therefore the motion is before the House today to suggest to the federal government that they adopt similar legislation that will not only ensure a balanced budget in this country be attained but will ensure that it will be sustained over a long period of time if similar kinds of restrictive legislative provisions are written under the act.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I can put a few words anyway on the record with respect to this particular resolution.

Ultimately, Madam Speaker, I think that if this resolution came to a vote, we would not see very much of a variation, with the exception of the former member for Portage la Prairie who is no longer around, in terms of the actual vote outcome for this vote than the legislation that we actually had recorded votes on.

Madam Speaker, the balanced budget legislation that this government introduced was flawed. It had a major flaw in it and it bodes about incompetence in government and wanting to be able to once again pull the veil over the eyes of Manitobans.

Madam Speaker, we have seen this government play trickery when it comes to the managing of finances in this province. The member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) articulated and articulated well the ways in which this government has manipulated the Fiscal Stabilization Fund as an excellent example of just what this government has been doing with respect to the financial affairs of this province.

Madam Speaker, it makes absolutely no sense for the government to say that every year we have to have a balanced budget. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and as in the committee room I would challenge any good, wise businessman who can stand up and say that there is no need to borrow money. At some point in time, you have to borrow money. I will acknowledge that Manitobans want to see a balanced budget. Manitobans want to see surplus budgets, and I believe all political parties want to see balanced and surplus budgets, but it is irresponsible to believe that there is no need to borrow money at any point in time.

That is, in fact, what this legislation is, in essence, saying. It does not take into any account a business cycle, for example. [interjection] No, it does not take into account business cycles, Madam Speaker. That is one of the biggest criticisms that we leveled at this particular government, and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson), who sat through the many public hearings and public presentations, was very much aware of that fact. At times, it is necessary to borrow money in order to facilitate better economic opportunities in some cases, in order to facilitate social programs.

You know, Keynesian theory will tell you that the best time that you should be spending money is during depressions or recessions, Madam Speaker, and during the better times of an economic cycle, that then is your opportunity in which you can start to balance and build surpluses. But there has to be a balanced approach, and that is something that this legislation and the proposer of this resolution do not recognize.

That is unfortunate because the individual who proposed this particular resolution is, in essence, carrying on the same theme of what the government was trying to talk about during the last provincial election, trying to mislead Manitobans into believing that this government is serious at trying to balance and provide surpluses in a straightforward fashion, because they have not been straightforward with Manitobans.

The member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) talked about when they were first elected, Madam Speaker. When they were first elected, they actually had a $45 million, $54 million surplus, in around that range, and instead of acknowledging the surplus they chose to create a deficit by borrowing $150 million with the idea of creating a $200-million Fiscal Stabilization Fund, and I take great pride in the fact that the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) and I are the only two members of this current House who voted against the Fiscal Stabilization Fund.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) will have 11 minutes remaining.

The hour being 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday).