Mr. Speaker, we would have a normal tax system for a normal modern industrialized country. We would surely have a more equitable system that would not favour only the very, very, very high incomes. I am not talking about high incomes in the definition we have. I just gave you the example of family trusts, with an average of $47 million in assets and as much as half a billion. It is not right that these people pay no capital gains tax year after year for 80 years.
As we have shown from the beginning, sovereignists care about tax fairness, and I suppose that in a sovereign Quebec such treatment would be called into question. The same goes for the 3,400 Canadians who did not pay a cent of income tax to the federal treasury last year, even though they had a very high income. I think that we would also try to correct that effectively.
I would remind you-I know that I have only a minute left-and you will tell me that it is not related to the question, but it is related to the question, quite a bit in fact; I would remind you that sovereignists care about the collective well-being. We have also shown that we want to reduce the contribution of big corporations and big lobby groups to the financing of political parties as much as possible. That is why the Parti Quebecois, just as the Bloc Quebecois, is financed by the people.
That is why a sovereignist government in Quebec, unlike the Liberal government in Ottawa, is not subject to undue pressure and influenced by gifts, in some cases, from lobbyists for very rich Canadian families with assets of $47 million to half a billion that are not taxed for 80 years.
This already gives us a good idea that the prime concern of a sovereign Quebec will be the majority of the people, not an elite who provides the funding, as it does for the Liberal Party of Canada, so that this government has its hands tied and the
Minister of Finance does not put the real tax loopholes in his paper but goes after the tax breaks affecting middle- and low-income people.
So this gives you some idea of what sovereignty would mean for us.