Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to Bill S-9 and in support of the amendments put forward by the hon. member opposite, the member for Gander-Grand Falls.
Since 1988 the Americans have required all non-residents to pay a 55 per cent estate tax on all U.S. property worth more than $60,000. However, the agreement before our House which is not yet ratified means that Canadians with less than $600,000 in U.S. assets will now be exempt from American estate taxes. That also means that Canadians with more than $600,000 in assets will pay the American tax and then will be allowed to claim a portion of it in foreign tax credits here in Canada. This means a $600,000 U.S. exemption which is a $900,000 Canadian exemption in real dollars. This is a tax bill which is helping the very rich.
I want to say a couple of things about this bill. Members of the Liberal Party opposite, including the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, talk about how important this bill is to education. It is very peculiar that medicare, the health care system and the education system in Canada are being squeezed by these very Liberals through the drastic cuts in this time bomb budget which is before our country now.
We are hurting the education system in Canada as a result of it, yet we are going to give the very wealthy an opportunity to make contributions to the education system in the United States and we are going to subsidize it through our tax dollars. My colleague, the member for Kamloops, clearly delineated and outlined the outrage of Canadians with respect to the approach of this government cutting back on education in Canada but providing an opportunity for wealthy Canadians to get tax credits for making contributions to the American education system.
Now we see whose interests this government is working on behalf of in this House of Commons. It is not for ordinary Canadians, not for unemployed Canadians who require unemployment insurance or who require some assistance with respect to health care and education. They are not the interests of the Liberal federal government. The interests are those who feed the Liberal government, those who make substantial financial contributions to the Liberal Party. The very wealthy in this country, the large corporations, the wealthy families are getting their interests high on the agenda of the House of Commons because they own the Liberal Party, they contribute millions of dollars to it every year.
As a result, their agenda is what is on the agenda of Canada. Their agenda is to accumulate more wealth. That is the agenda of the wealthy, the individuals, families and corporations in this country who bought and paid for the Liberal Party. This is a bill the Liberal Party is putting forward in the House of Commons which will thank them in spades for their generosity over the last couple
of years. The Canadian population is going to be paying for this generosity by the Liberal Party to their wealthy friends.
Bill S-9 is an absolute disgrace for the Liberal Party. The Liberals should be embarrassed out of their shorts with respect to this bill. I hope they are feeling as bad as some of the members opposite look like they are feeling because this bill is a wrong priority for Canada. It is a wrong priority for the House of Commons.
What about the farmers? This bill gives the wealthy families a break with retroactive tax breaks back to 1988, but what about the farmers in the prairies? What has the government done for the farmers? It eliminated the Crow benefit, which is a transportation subsidy. In effect 25 per cent of Canada's farming population will be eliminated from earning a living using their farming skills, yet the government is going to give the very wealthy additional hundreds of millions of dollars. This is tax reform of the very worst kind.
What about a fair taxation system where Canadians who are earning a living feel confident that their load is being shared by the very wealthy? The Liberal government is not providing that sense of confidence to the ordinary Canadians, to those who are working and to those who are looking for jobs.
This is an issue on which typically, Liberal members have mastered speaking out of both sides of their mouths. The hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls did an exceptional job of articulating the pitfalls of the legislation and the lack of priority it has with the Liberal government. That is common practice in the Liberal Party. Whenever it has a bill which is embarrassing, which will hurt the majority of Canadians at the expense of the very few wealthy, it always tries to have a few members of Parliament say: "What we are doing is not the right thing, but we are not going to vote against it. We are not going to make any public contention that it is a bad bill. However, we are going to put it on the record that we are not happy with what is going on".
It is time for Canadians to recognize the fact that members of the Liberal Party of Canada speak out of both sides of their mouths. They do it effectively. I want them to understand that Canadians will not accept that very much longer.
This is not the first piece of legislation to help wealthy Canadians. In the budget last February the government dealt with family trusts. Family trusts are costing Canadian taxpayers millions and millions of dollars each year in terms of lost revenue, hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the last four or five years. A family trust allows very wealthy families to shelter their income and their assets from Revenue Canada. Therefore, they do not contribute in a fair way to the revenues of our country.
In the last budget the Liberals said they would do away with the family trust situation to obtain more money for the population of Canada. When? In 1995? No. 1996? No. 1997? Well no, it takes a bit of time to unwind these things. Maybe in 1999, a year or two after the next federal election is when the Liberal Party will address the issue. It is helping the very wealthiest families and corporations in Canada.
The New Democrats are four square against this sort of priority when there are a large number of people who are unemployed, when the unemployment insurance program is under attack, when education is being cut back and when there is a vicious, unrelenting attack on medicare. The New Democrats will continue to stand up for ordinary Canadians on these issues, including fair taxation. We are asking the government to reconsider the bill, to make amends and to return it to the Senate, telling the Senate that we will not pass the bill.