Mr. Speaker, I was attempting to explain the Reform Party's tax policy. The difficulty the rest of the country has in understanding it is that the type of debate we have just heard is what happened at their convention.
The flat tax has been around for a long time. The Liberal Party looked at it. Some of our members were pioneers in it. A number of Republican Party candidates in the United States have dealt with it. They have consistently run into the same problems in that it is very difficult to come up with a flat tax which does not benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, or it is difficult to come up with one that does not have so many exemptions and such a great deal of complexity that it vitiates its very purpose.
The fact is that-