Madam Speaker, I sometimes wonder if when we have warm bodies in the House it makes any difference. I still do not think it helps anything. The government is not listening to what we have to say.
We began today's debate with one of the members opposite making some blatantly false and misleading statements. It is interesting that the Liberals continue to propagate this not just within this House but outside this House as well. They continue to make completely false statements. The member also explained that this is the best finance minister, except for the one we had in the mid-seventies who is the present Prime Minister.
If the Liberals are going to set that person up as the best finance minister we have ever had, they are saying that the deficits begun by the Liberal government, the deficits that led to our tremendous present debt were good. They are saying that the past finance minister, the present Prime Minister, who started us on the road to overspending had the right idea. I cannot accept that. To set him up as the best finance minister we have ever had is totally false and misleading. That has to be the sorriest statement I have heard in this House to date.
I made the point that approximately 30 bills have been rammed through the House. Full debate was not allowed on those which indicates this is a very undemocratic institution. The people of Canada must ask what is really going on here. Fundamental to this debate on taxes and on the GST is the question of why we need it. Why does the government need to continue raising all of this money?
I discovered an interesting coincidence. This morning I introduced the people's tax form which is a voluntary tax form that all taxpayers could return with their income tax forms every April. On the forms they could indicate to the government the programs they support and the programs they oppose. It would be an indication to the government of what the people of Canada want.
In light of the debate we are having today, would it not be interesting to include on that form a question which asks people what they would like done with the GST? Do they want it to be a hidden tax as this government is proposing? Do they want it hidden in the prices of products so when the government decides to increase the tax it will not be very visible and the government will not get all the negative publicity it hates? If the government were to ask the people of Canada, I wonder what their response would be.
I believe that Reformers are speaking up on behalf of the people of Canada. The silence of the Liberals indicates that this government does not want to debate the topic.
Each time the government raises taxes, we have already indicated in many previous speeches over the past three years that these taxes kill jobs. It is very simple. As long as people are paying more money in the form of taxes into the government coffers, they cannot spend that money on other things that create real jobs. They cannot buy goods and services which really creates a better lifestyle for all of us. Every time they send millions of dollars to Ottawa it is as if that money is put in a big black hole. It is not an effective way of producing jobs, I can guarantee that. In fact, taxes kill jobs. Studies have been done. They are out there.
Taxes also hurt families. The GST really hurts our average family in Canada. How do taxes hurt families? Forty-six per cent of the average taxpayer's income now goes to government. It has come to the point where both parents feel they have to work in order to maintain a decent standard of living. One parent works for the government when we have a tax level that is so high. It hurts families because those parents would like to be spending more time at home with their children. Studies have found that the high tax level has really hurt families.
The Liberals then turn around and appear to be compassionate. They are going to have a big program to target child poverty. Who has created the poverty? It has been these very people who now pretend that they are going to help people in some way. Reducing government programs so that we can reduce taxes should be our priority and fundamental to the entire discussion we are having here today.
If we ask Canadians, as I have done, what their priorities are in spending and what things they would oppose, we would get some very interesting answers. If the government actually listened to Canadians, it could scrap the GST because it could reduce taxes which is what has to be done.
I took a survey which has been tabled in the House along with the people's tax form bill that I introduced today. I believe the survey in my riding will not be substantially different from surveys taken across the country. What was the number one program, the sacred cow for the government, that people opposed? Official bilingualism. They felt that the government has been wasting money in this area for decades. The second thing Canadians opposed was funding for special interest groups. In my riding, the third thing they opposed was gun registration. Members may think that is just because I come from basically a rural riding, but I will tell a story.
I spoke at the University of Toronto and half of the audience were young females. It was a good cross-section of the entire population. At the beginning of my speech I took a little survey. I asked them how many thought that gun registration was a good thing and a wise way to spend our money. The vast majority of them raised their hands and said they thought it was a good idea. I then asked if they minded if I explained it to them. I told them how it was going to take quite a bit of tax money to implement and in the end people would have a piece of paper lying beside their gun. To make a long story short, by the time I was done explaining to them what it was all about, I took another survey and the exact opposite happened. There was virtually no support for this.
What happens is that if we properly inform Canadians as to what some of the programs are that this government is implementing, the support drops and they feel it is not a wise way to spend our tax
money. In fact, they would rather spend it on health care, family crisis centres and those kinds of things, not the sacred things this government is implementing.
I wish I could go on longer, but I will conclude. Let us look at the fundamental problem. The government is wasting money on so many things that are totally unnecessary and this could be scrapped if it did away with those things.