I outlined a few in my comments that would be progressive, certainly as far as having more taxation toward a green economy goes. But the tax system still taxes low-income people more and lets corporations off the hook; it gives a lot more breaks to corporations.
If we go back to the last crisis in the mid-nineties, it was handled by cutting social programs, when in fact government spending was about 8% of the whole budget, and 2% was for social programs. That's where cuts were made, rather than tackling interest rates and the number of corporations and high-income people who should have been paying more taxes.
So we should stay away from flat taxes and get the wealthy to pay more taxes--that's the main one. That's the one that I think is the biggest problem. It has been eating away at our inability to fund the kinds of social programs in this country that need to be funded. Then we need to work very hard to set up a green economy, because that's where the future is.
We certainly need tax breaks for education, but we also need to change how the education system is working in this family, because there are people with bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, and even doctors, in this country who can't find work.
So how do we take a look at the whole system and see how it is being financed and where the priorities are? Because it's not just taxes; it's priorities for spending. What kind of Canada do we want? How happy are we about being 25th in the OECD as far as social programs are concerned? Every time we ask for an increase in a social program we're told it can't be done, but at the same time we promise more tax breaks.