Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the comments of the hon. member who just spoke. Unfortunately, he does not address the issue on the order paper today, this famous committee of experts set up by the Minister of Finance to analyze business taxation.
This is what we have been saying for the close to three years, and the Auditor General of Canada told the minister in his 1993-94 report that business taxation was deficient. But the minister does not appear to understand or to hear.
I would simply like to recount a short anecdote that the hon. member may find helpful. One day, a Japanese minister threw out a challenge to his Canadian counterpart, probably the finance minister, to see which of the two groups, the Canadians or the Japanese, would be able to row across the St. Lawrence River the fastest. The Japanese team showed up with four rowers and a coxswain. The Canadian minister of finance, mightily amused, turned up with one rower, two section chiefs, one director and an assistant deputy minister.
The race began. Half way across, the Japanese were already ten minutes ahead of the Canadian team. No matter, not to worry. The Canadians added another section chief, to motivate and encourage the rower. On they went. Three quarters of the way through the race, the Japanese had a 20 minute lead. Something had to be done. The deputy minister himself was called in, took up his spot in the boat and on they went. The rower must not lose motivation. Not surprisingly, the Japanese won the race hands down, with a 30-minute lead over the Canadian team. What had happened?
There was a post mortem . Many months and many hundreds of thousands of dollars later, a report concluded that they had fallen down in organization, productivity had not been good, and communications between management and employees poor. So they abolished the position of rower.
This joke is instructive. What we have here is the same thing. A committee will be created, that we in the Bloc Quebecois do not necessarily want-but since it is the wish of the Minister of Finance-a committee of experts to analyze business taxation. We say to you: "This committee should include members of all parties, who could contribute their knowledge, speak directly to the friends you have appointed, and try to get them to face the facts".
No, you say. You have things to protect, but it will end up the same as the joke I just told. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and probably holding hearings across Canada, the conclusion will be that the rower was no good. In the end, it is the economy that is no good, with all your interfering.