Mr. Speaker, this could be one of the happiest days of my life, responding to this question.
If there is an issue facing this country right now, one of the top issues that is frustrating Canadians is the matter of our unfair, unjust, biased tax system at both the corporate and personal levels. A major overhaul is required. For us to go into the details of why that is the case, they are all well known. I suspect we have all had constituents lined up 50 or 60 deep some days explaining their problems with the tax system.
I can commit to my hon. friend from Broadview-Greenwood that there is nothing I would enjoy more than to sit down with him and others in a non-partisan effort to examine every tax provision that presently exists on a cost benefit basis to the people of Canada and come up with a comprehensive system of tax reform that would bring fairness back into the system. People would see the tax system as being fair to both them and others, where there would be nobody who would obviously benefit from that system.
I know some of my friends are very keen about the flat tax system. I am not sure what they mean by the flat tax because there are all kinds of definitions of that, as my friend from Broadview-Greenwood has explained in his publication and others beyond what he said. However, it is something we need to look at among a whole set of alternatives and various proposals to have a fairer tax system so that the most popular book come the new year is not on how to avoid tax.
When we go into bookstores across Canada, no matter what bookstore it is the front counter now has issues and issues and various publications on how to beat the tax man. The reason they are popular is because every single person and business person knows that the tax system is unfair.
I will use one example to measure the unfairness in how the tax system is being used. The audit division of Revenue Canada tells us that for every $1 it invests in an audit procedure it collects $6 back. It is not necessarily that people are all breaking the law, but they are certainly hedging on that. In other words, they are saying that this does not seem to be clear so I am going to make my tax decision in this grey area. As a result, the treasury of our country is losing billions of dollars that would normally be collected. However, because of a tax system that is so vague, so grey, so biased, so unjust and so unfair, people are revolting against it in a number of ways.
Let us not forget that the obvious way the people are revolting is to participate in the underground economy. What are the losses there? The experts will tell us that anywhere from $40 billion and $160 billion are lost each year because of transactions that are not registered and not taxed as a result of the underground economy.
Therefore, I say with enthusiasm, in response to my friend, yes, I will be willing, with my party very strongly behind me, to participate in any measure that will result in a fairer tax system than we have today.