Spend the surplus
Alternative Federal Budget presents a different approach

Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 29/99) - Federal Finance Minister Paul Martin should aim the pending federal budget surplus on social and other programs that improve the quality of lives of all Canadians, the 1999 Alternative Federal Budget suggests.

The AFB has been produced in each of the past five years by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Choices.

In the NWT, Alternatives North released the budget for Northerners Wednesday in Yellowknife at city hall.

The AFB, put together by about 100 economists, suggests the federal budget surplus, estimated to be $12 billion, should go to bolster health care, education, unemployment insurance and environmental protection.

"It's high time governments realize health of people and places should be at the top of the priority list and there are ways to do it," Alternatives North member Tasha Stephenson said.

Ben McDonald, co-chair of Alternatives North, said revenues from increased economic growth should be used to pay down the debt.

And under the AFB, unemployment would decline to less than six per cent over the next two years, he said.

The AFB suggests that if the federal government does not reinvest a large surplus in social programs and public works, the unemployment rate will rise to nine per cent.

The AFB says the result of all this spending will be 1.4 million new jobs over the next four years -- 600,000 more than likely under current policy.

McDonald also said the AFB would restore unemployment insurance benefits.

"About one-third of the unemployed qualify for benefits. Ten years ago it was 83 per cent," McDonald said.

For unemployed women and young women the percentages today are around 31 per cent and 15 per cent respectively, he adds.

The alternative budget would set aside $700 million over two years for youth employment in community development initiatives. The projects would be designed and proposed by youth.

The AFB proposes a separate UI fund for fiscal 1999 onwards. This would stop the use of surplus UI funds, currently in the billions of dollars, used to subsidize other areas of the federal budget.

On the revenue-generating side, the AFB proposes two "green" tax measures, a tax on greenhouse-gas fuels and the elimination of tax preferences for oil and gas development. These two moves are estimated to raise $1 billion.