Mr. Speaker, I apologize. The hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood has campaigned long and hard in the Liberal Party for a flat tax system that gets rid of the very type of loopholes that wealthy Canadians are taking advantage of today through this legislation.
Lately the Reform Party has talked long and hard about the need to have legislation that treats everybody fairly. Reformers believe in equity and this is very inequitable legislation. I really do have a tremendous problem with its essence which is special treatment for people who donate these objects of art. That is of great concerns.
I challenge the government to review this matter and to ask itself, in its heart of hearts, if this is really fair. I am sure on reflection members across the way who in good conscience stand in the House and tell us that they do not like to see privilege go to wealthy Canadians, if they understood the essence of this bill they would have a tremendous problem with it. That is one of the things that concerns me greatly about this legislation.
Our party views this as Robin Hood in reverse. It is not only that wealthy Canadians are getting a tremendous tax advantage here. It is the lack of revenue that is created by the $60 million in tax credits. It means that when taxpayers have to pay for things the government views as priorities, average Canadians have to be taxed to a greater extent in order to bring that revenue in. In a day and age when the talk is about cutting social programs, reforming UI
and possibly looking at pensions for seniors, that $60 million would be extremely valuable.
I will be moving a motion in just a moment on the need to bring this type of legislation in line with what currently exists in the income tax system. Ultimately Reformers would like to see a flat tax implemented which would get rid of these types of abuses and privileges for the wealthiest of wealthy Canadians.
I conclude by saying that I recognize that wealthy people are discriminated against in this country. Being wealthy is quite a burden. People are not protected in the Canadian Human Rights Act for being wealthy. Wealthy people are not protected under Bill C-41, the legislation that extended protection in the justice system to people based on certain categories. I do not believe wealthy people are protected in employment equity legislation either.
I appreciate that wealthy people have a tremendous burden to bear. I appreciate that sometimes people say snide things about them behind their backs and talk about them as though they are better than rest of us. I can see that is a large concern, but I do not know that we have to go so far to correct that abuse and that inequity as to give them the $60 million in tax credits every year.
I am going to conclude by moving a motion. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting the following therefor:
This House declines to give second reading to Bill C-93, an act to amend the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, the Income Tax Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, since it fails to address the issue of the burden the tax credit system places on middle class taxpayers who are asked to pay for a potentially endless stream of donations of questionable cultural and artistic value claimed by wealthy Canadians.