Mr. Speaker, I noticed the member reading from a piece of paper. I guess it is the hymn book of the Reform Party. I suggest that Reform members start going back and actually looking at the whole structure of taxation in Canada.
I could not believe my ears when he said it is a difficult tax, it is not simple. Then he turned around and made the statement that is so simple it is hard to get in here. I cannot quite understand his philosophy.
I am going to repeat one more key statistic. It comes from their favourite Fraser Institute. Sixty-three per cent of all income taxes in Canada are paid by the top 30 per cent of taxpayers.
It does not matter what the Reform Party members want to argue, they are not going to change that statistic. Realistically, when you start saying you are going to let the lower bottom people off, fine, I understand that.
There are some problems with that because you create a wall of taxation. It keeps poor people in debt. It keeps people down because they have no the way to make progress. As soon as they earn an extra dollar, they are hitting the 23 per cent tax rates. That is the philosophy of the Reform Party. Keep the poor people poor and while we are at it, let us shift the tax burden from the very wealthy, which that party represents, to middle income earners.
That is not going to fly. It is not going to fly out west and it is not going to fly down here either.