Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak against the motion put forward by the Bloc to remove means testing whereby the tax credit for seniors is reduced as their incomes go up. As I have said in the House before and will say again, members of the Bloc are not only separatists but socialists too. They always want to ensure the status quo is protected: we cannot change anything given to a group of people even though it has been shown to be no longer appropriate.
We have a fiscal crisis in the country. The finance minister is starting to recognize it. The Reform Party has recognized it for a long time and has been able to raise awareness of that fact. Now the government is coming on side and saying that we really have a problem.
The Minister of Finance promised us a tough budget with some more tax increases in the name of fairness. Some may question the fairness but they are certainly tax increases. We are going to see some cuts. The Reform Party has been proposing these for many years. We ran in the election on balancing the budget within three years. We must get the job done to ensure that our social programs for those in need are protected. That is the number one priority. After that we have to ensure that we get the budget balanced.
The motion put forward by the Bloc would suggest that we continue the old situation of taxing the poor to pay for the rich. We have millionaires in the country who spend their winters in Florida, in Mexico, in southern United States and in Hawaii because they are retired. They have large incomes and a large amount of assets. Yet we continue to give them a tax break paid through the additional taxes of young families struggling to pay mortgages, young families trying to raise children, educate them and get on their feet. These people are being focused. We are calling them the middle class and saying: "You have to pay more in order that a certain segment can live in the lap of luxury and get a tax break too".
Surely it makes sense to recognize that the elderly poor need assistance, to focus on them and to remove the credit for those who can afford to pay their share of taxes. That is what it is coming down to. We want to be really fair and not like the Minister of Finance who suggests that fairness is an increase.
We want to ensure we are fair and focus the money where it will do the greatest amount of good. We should remove the tax credits from those who can afford to do without them. It is not
pleasant. We would rather not do it but unfortunately with the situation the country is in we really do not have a choice.
We hoped the Liberal government would have acted quickly and decisively to get the job done a year ago. We are $45 billion or $55 billion more in debt, and the Minister of Finance says: "I think I am going to start this time". I do not think that is good enough, but it is water under the bridge, the horse is out of the barn or whatever. Here we are today; let us hope this time the Minister of Finance will make an aggressive start rather than continue his policy of gradualism to get the budget balanced some time down the road.
Let us get the job done. If we do not get the job done we will not only find that we have to reduce the tax credit for seniors this year but we will have to eliminate it for everybody another year. We will have to cut social programs we can no longer afford that are not only desirable but almost mandatory. However we will not have the money for them.
That is the crisis looming ahead if we do not act decisively now. I cannot understand why the Bloc would suggest that we should continue allowing this tax credit for millionaires. The point is that we must move ahead.
Our leader, the member for Calgary Southwest, has said quite specifically on several occasions that we are going to introduce a budget and the Minister of Finance is going to have a budget and he is prepared to debate the two of them.
The Minister of Finance is playing games again. He told us he was going to reduce the deficit to $25 billion in three years. A couple of weeks ago he said we were to have two-year rolling targets. Everybody thought that was progress until they realized that he was only going to release them one at a time. Now he is going to say: "Guess what, my two-year rolling target is $25 billion in 1996-97".
We knew that a year and a half ago. We have not moved forward. He admitted back in October when he appeared before the finance committee that things were falling apart and he had to make extra cuts between $9 billion and $15 billion to meet his goal. Interest rates have gone up even more since then. The cost of the debt has gone up even more since then. His figures are even more off track. Yet he still has a policy of gradualism.
Death by a thousand cuts is one thing I was looking at. I was looking at Bill C-59 and the number of tax increases being proposed. These are just last year's budget increases. We have not even started to get the job done. We have seen the budget reduced from $40 billion to $39.7 billion, a minuscule drop. We have seen the $100,000 lifetime capital gains exemption eliminated. We have seen extended the taxation on employer provided benefits to include the first $25,000 of life insurance. There is the age credit we are talking about today. Business meals and entertainment expenses have been reduced from 80 per cent to 50 per cent. Divisive corporate reorganizations curtail a tax avoidance tactic that allows capital gains and so on. Investment tax credits reduce the rate at which a tax credit is calculated and so on. It is death by a thousand cuts and we have not started the job.
The deficit still has not come down in any meaningful way until the Minister of Finance introduces another budget in a few weeks time. If interest rates continue to rise that will not do any good whatsoever.
Therefore, while we support the reduction being proposed in Bill C-59 that is opposed by the Bloc, we are also saying loudly and clearly to the Minister of Finance: "Get the job done". If he gets off this policy of gradualism and deals with the crisis effectively, we can say to seniors and others who depend on social programs that we recognize we have a responsibility and want to preserve social programs for those in need. If the Minister of Finance does not get the job done now and get it done quickly, these programs will be in jeopardy because the government could not get the job done.