Madam Speaker, I would like to make a comment and ask a question of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.
I am disappointed to hear that he is against the exploration of an integrated flat tax system or single tax. I am also challenged to see here that he says it is seductive. It is unfortunate that when suggestions are made that seem to have a lot of encouraging inducements to looking at them they are labelled as too simple.
Why do people in politics feel that the problems are so complex and that tax reform is a difficult process? I believe the parliamentary secretary has already listened to the Department of Finance too long. That is an incorrect and false premise. He should think for himself. He should look at the problems and try to use some common sense and he will see that this is where that will lead him. Not that I am that intelligent but that is where my nose led me and Lord knows it is long enough.
The other comment I have is that we in the Standing Committee on Finance are looking at a replacement for the GST, but that is a band-aid approach to the real problem. Why not cure the entire illness with a surgical overhaul of the entire tax system?
We have a year and a half to do it; a year and a half to just come up with a band-aid and the illness will have grown worse, and then our problem will become even greater.
The hon. member also took credit for the wonderful consultative process that this great Liberal government has now introduced to the principles of democracy. Taking credit for consultations is nothing new. If that is all the credit it wants to take, it can have all of it.
What would be new is after we consult with provinces and individuals the government actually listens and implements their suggestions. I hope this is something that will happen.
He also criticizes flat tax. This is where I am leading to my question. He states that as the current system is progressive, it would eliminate progressivity. It would introduce regressivity because it is a flat tax and we are taxing the poor.
Lower income earners would be tax exempt. Upper income earners would lose their tax loopholes. They would not get these wonderful deductions that they are getting now and they would pay tax on every dollar earned. For instance, higher income people can lower their tax rates from a 50 per cent rate down to a 30 per cent rate and this I know from personal experience. That would be eliminated and they would be paying tax on everything.
Therefore, collectively from individuals and more significantly in terms of corporations this is where we get more tax out of corporations. After my comments here and specifically to his questions, would the parliamentary secretary apply some common sense and would he be willing to request the Department of Finance and the department of revenue and taxation to crunch some numbers to illustrate or highlight the difficulties to this House of a system like this with no exemptions?
Why not put the Departments of Finance and National Revenue to work instead of listening to them saying that it is too complex and it will not work? Put them to work and make them
prove to this House that a system like this does not deserve more consideration.