Madam Speaker, it was with great interest that I listened to the rhetoric from the member opposite.
April is tax month, the month when most Canadians fill out their annual tax forms. Madam Speaker, how many Canadians do you think would be willing to walk into a department store at the end of every month, slap down a cheque for $500 and then let the clerk decide what to bring them for their money? How many people would let that clerk go to the shelves and decide what the customer will get for their hard earned wages? Would people be willing to tolerate being forced to go to the store every month and lay down a huge sum of money to buy things they do not necessarily want or need? What I am trying to say is we need to change the system and bring back democracy to the way our government spends our money.
The member opposite talked about how the government is not increasing taxes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since this government has taken over, personal income taxes have risen over $1,000 per person and the hon. member says they are not raising taxes. What a bunch of you know what I am talking about, Madam Speaker. I am fed up with the Liberals misleading the public.
We need a tax system that does not just focus on collecting more money, but allows people to determine how it is spent. We would never go to a store and allow them to simply tell us what we are going to get for our money but the government tells the people of this country what they are going to get for their money.
The member said the government is going to put in place all of these new programs. She talks about reducing government spending and then goes on to list all these new programs. Do people have people a choice? How about a tax form that tells the government what the priorities of the people are. We have real problems with the way government when elected does not carry out the wishes of the people.
The hon. member went on to talk about how health care is a priority. Is it when we reduce funding for health care and increase it in other areas? She talked about multiculturalism in her riding. I have multiculturalism in my riding as well. In fact English and French are not the dominant features there.
I took a survey as to how my people want their money spent and multiculturalism was almost at the bottom of the list, yet this government emphasizes that kind of thing. People want to look after those programs themselves.
The system is rewarding lobbyists, special interest groups and corporations. What about the tax concessions and grants to the corporations, the very corporations that pay the bills for this Liberal government to get elected? Then when it gets elected it turns around and rewards those corporations with tax concessions and grants.
How about asking the taxpayers if that is how they want their money spent? I think the member gets the message. It is about time the Liberals started listening to the people and stopped misleading the people about how great it is to have all these new programs and to spend all this extra money when in fact they have increased taxes drastically but they try to portray the image that they have not.
I wonder if the member would like to go to a department store and slap down a huge sum of money every month and have them determine what she is going to get for it. Taxpayers deserve to have more input into how government spends their money.