I apologize, Mr. Speaker. It was said in the heat of the debate. Everyone refers to this reform by the minister's name, so I forgot we were on the floor of the House and that ministers should not be referred to by name.
Last week, we suggested to the Minister of Finance that the federal government withdraw from all areas of provincial jurisdiction and not, as is the case in the social security reform proposals presented by the Minister of Human Resources Development, maintain and reinforce the federal government's involvement in areas that are the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces, such as health care and education.
Since in its discussions on relations between Quebec and the federal government, the Bélanger-Campeau Commission concluded that at least $2 billion could be saved by getting rid of all this duplication and overlap, I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that at least $3 billion could be saved in the process. For a start, the government could do, as suggested by the Bloc Quebecois last June, and abolish the GST, give this tax space to the provinces and let them be responsible for introducing a consumer tax. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars in GST administration costs could be recovered. Our second constructive suggestion for the minister was to cut many of the subsidies now being given to businesses. As you know, these subsidies represent a total of $3.3 billion. I am not saying they are all useless, but many are given as a form of patronage to businesses that are not efficient and not competitive, at a time when the stakes have changed as a result of globalization of world markets and international competition. There is a potential savings of $3.3 billion here for the Minister of Finance.
The same goes for the defence budget. In its election platform, the Bloc Quebecois proposed a 25 per cent reduction in the National Defence budget. So far, we have seen a 10 per cent cut in the last budget, or $1.1 billion. We have other positive and constructive suggestions to allow the Minister of Finance to cut another $1.6 billion from the defence budget.
According to all Quebec and Canadian experts we consulted, it is possible to get this extra 15 per cent without reducing or watering down the Canadian Forces mandate. Fourth, we asked the Minister of Finance to immediately stop government financing of Hibernia.
A total of $3.3 billion has already been sunk into this project without any prospect of profits and without knowing when the first barrel of oil will be extracted. If I remember correctly, the price of a barrel of oil must reach $26US for the Hibernia project to merely get to the point where it is no longer losing money on every barrel of oil is extracted from this drilling rig, without considering past losses. This year alone, another $250 million will be sunk into this project. Next year, another $250 million or even $300 million could be spent on this project, according to the finance minister's projections, without any hope of profitability.
How many more billions of dollars will the federal government sink into this project, when it is asking all Quebecers and Canadians, especially the poorest, to tighten their belts? Fifth suggestion, we asked the Minister of Finance to read again the last three reports from the auditor general, which reveal blatant carelessness, again, in government program management as well as a bureaucracy which-in some respects-is still overspending and wasteful in 1994, when we are told that public
finances must be brought under control and be more balanced over the next three years than they have ever been. This is our fifth suggestion to the Minister of Finance.
Sixth, we suggested that the Minister of Finance improve tax collection and tackle the recovery of bad debts. The auditor General says that there is $6 billion to pick up here. This amount of $6 billion does not even include contested debts. This is $6 billion that the federal government could get, but because of its laxity, we have a deliberate shortfall of over $6 billion this year.
The same goes for our seventh suggestion to the Minister of Finance and, strangely enough, these suggestions do not appear in his documents. We asked him to reform the Canadian tax system, but not by cutting the age credit, not by taxing RRSPs, not by attacking the middle class and the poor; we asked him to eliminate undue advantages for family trusts which benefit wealthy Canadians. I would recall a rather significant statistic. Ernst and Young surveyed 121 trusts-we only have surveys to go on because the Department of Finance and the Department of Revenue do not want to do a comprehensive analysis of family trusts-and I will give you some figures about them.
The average value of the assets in 121 trusts was $47 million. These are not family trusts for middle-income or high-income people, according to our own definition; these are $47 million in assets belonging to very rich Canadians. These family trusts held up to half a billion dollars. Indeed, that was the amount held in Trust No. 121 in the sample, which was the highest one. Five hundred million dollars. Five hundred million dollars in a trust which, year after year, and possibly until the death of the last beneficiary, benefits from a tax exemption on capital gains. If this beneficiary is lucky and lives to the age of 84, he may benefit from this tax exemption until he is 80 years old, on capital and assets which may be in the millions of dollars.
The same goes for tax conventions. We told the Minister of Finance but he is refuses to listen because he does not like the idea of targeting his friends, the friends of this government. We said that, even after the changes made to the taxation system last February, Canada still had tax conventions with 16 countries and these are considered to be tax havens.
The government loses hundreds of millions because Canadian corporations and very high income earners use these countries to avoid paying taxes. It is time to eliminate such loopholes and it is time this government realizes that it was not elected by major corporations or by those very rich Canadians who have family trusts with, on average, assets of $47 million and sometimes as much as half a billion dollars. It was elected by those people whom the government has been targeting since it took office.