I would invite the member for Beauséjour to breathe through the nose. I do not know who will take over his riding after the next election, but he may have to let it go given the performance of his party over the past three years.
The member for Beauséjour should stop shouting at the official opposition, his peers who still live on Canadian soil after all, and are looking for ways to improve the taxation system, increase public revenues without choking people to death. I could very well make some suggestions.
I will offer one suggestion, if he is considerate enough to listen to me; the idea just came to me.
Take the example of a worker. First, 57 or 58 per cent of his paycheque is deducted at source. On his paycheque stub he can see the word "net". What it means is that his paycheque is trimmed down to the minimum, because there is not much left. He then goes home with the 42 or 43 per cent that is left, but he is not out of the woods yet. The government thinks, dreams, racks its brains and says: "How could we grab most of the 43 cents on every dollar earned that actually he brings home?" It thinks about all kinds of things and talks about harmonization, but it never thought that, because of the economic multiplier, the less money people have, the less they will contribute to making the economy work, the less they will invest in our society and the more this economic multiplier will tend to move toward zero, towards nil.
Then, the government ponders and finds that it is not getting enough revenues. It must trap people again, somewhere else. That is the Liberal philosophy.
I will give an example. If it were willing, one day, to see things differently. We are all taxpayers and, at some point, we have to paint the interior of our house. What do we do? On a nice Saturday, we go out and buy gallons of paint, two rollers and one pole. With our wife and children, we do the painting ourselves. It takes one weekend. This has cost us $300 or $400 in paint and we have saved money on a job that would have cost $800 in total.
If the government had examined that sort of thing and had allowed the taxpayer, instead of wearing himself out on the roller one weekend, to officially give the contract to someone else, thus thwarting the underground economy, the taxpayer could say: "Instead of wearing myself out on the roller, I will give the work to my neighbour who does not have a job. He has a social insurance number and will declare his income. In reality, this will cost me $800, but I will get a tax refund of about $200 and the paint will have cost me $400. Fine. It is worth my while to spend a whole weekend painting my house to save $200? Perhaps I would have given the contract to someone else." To save $800, it is worth it, to save $400 also, but not to save $200. This is the kind of thinking they are incapable of doing.
This might mean at the outset some kind of tax break, which is unthinkable for those on the other side. They prefer to raid the piggy bank greedily, a bit more every day, and they will go almost as far as the highwaymen of the last century, who would lay in ambush for travellers and rob them. Whether the hon. member for Beauséjour likes it or not, this is the situation we are facing today. These people show no sign of compassion for taxpayers nor any willingness to provide some relief and get the economy rolling. We could get rid of the underground economy; it could yiled interesting results, but they refuse to do so.
Even if I suggested such a thing, I would be afraid that they would turn around and tax capital gains from the sale of a residence. That shows are crooked they are.
Personally, I expect nothing from this government but I hope it will be able to tell the truth to the people and tell them it paid out $920 million to the maritimes to buy the support of voters there and make them forget the terrible things it did there. But we cannot be sure of that, because we have just seen one province change governments unexpectedly.
Their bill contains nothing which allows them to pat themselves on the back. We see how well they are holding promises made in 1993. We should expect nothing from these people, not even the honesty to admit that they broke their promises and that their word is not worth more than the ink of the red book.