Yes, that is right, they owe it to the young people. This government and previous governments have mortgaged the future of Canadians to pay for what we have today. That is the height of irresponsibility. The young people of today and those who are not yet born are the ones who are going to bear the brunt of this most tragic situation.
The current tax situation is an unwieldy, ineffective system that is bogged down in bureaucratic largesse. All of us here pay taxes. All of us see the tax plans. All of us see the forms that have to be filled out. How can we see these every year and not ask: If we are having a problem with it, is not the rest of Canada?
Why does the government not simplify the tax system to ensure that it is fair and equitable across the whole spectrum of individuals earning money? We must ensure that everybody pays their fair share without going through loopholes and favouritism within the system.
To that end, my colleague from Calgary who is our finance critic has just mentioned the flat tax system that we in the Reform Party have been speaking about since we were elected. It was one of the pillars of our economic and fiscal plan.
Essentially the flat tax system would simplify the tax to ensure that all Canadians pay their fair share. That is extremely important. As we speak to businesses and individuals alike they shake their heads and ask: "How can we deal with this tax system, a system that is so unwieldy, so unforgiving and so complicated?" There are many simpler ways of doing it.
The GST is another aspect of the tax system that was supposed to be revisited. The Deputy Prime Minister stated that if the GST was not gone a year after she was elected, she would be gone. Unfortunately she is still here. I think she should live up to her promises.
That is another aspect of the tax system which needs to be revisited. I ask and implore members on the government side to please listen to business leaders in their communities, not leaders of the business community leaders who come to us. Go out and walk among the business community/leaders and ask them what it is that absolutely frustrates and prevents them from maximizing their potential as a business person. They will say, nine times out of ten, it is the GST.
The second thing they will mention nine times out of ten is the unbelievable red tape they have to go through to operate within this country. It eludes me why, in a country as rich and as potentially powerful as ours, we have to hamstring the business community with bureaucratic entanglements.
I implore the government to look at ways of simplifying the taxation system, the bureaucratic red tape and internal trade barriers which hamper Canada.
The trade barriers in our country hamstring and prevent businesses from being the best that they can become. We aggressively pursue, and rightly so, international free trade agreements like the WTO and previous to that the GATT. It is done to help our business communities. That is done on the international scene. However it eludes me why on our domestic scene we turn around and say: "No, you cannot do business here. We are going to put tariffs there. We are going to oblige you to follow these rules and engage in the same type of bureaucratic entanglements and anti-free trade rules that we do not follow in our export and international endeavours". It is hurting our businesses and people wonder why we are not doing better. In part it is because of these internal trade barriers which are hamstringing the ability of businesses to do that.
When it was elected the government said it was going to aggressively pursue the elimination of these interprovincial trade barriers. It has only nibbled around the edges and Bill C-88 will prove it to the Canadian public.
In closing, there are good parts to Bill C-70 and many bad parts. We must simplify the tax system. Let us look at the flat tax system we want to apply. Let us ensure that we simplify expenditures. Let us attack the deficit and bring it down to zero. Listen to the zero in three plan of the Reform Party and move forward to a strong economy for all Canadians.