Mr. Speaker, I guess in principle we have a reasonable tax system in this country. I would agree with that.
It is not working the way it ought to work. As the hon. member mentioned, and I hope I heard him correctly, there are a lot of people, at least our perception is so, who earn an awful lot of money who pay little or no tax. Then of course there are those people who make very little money who pay little or no tax, but the bulk of the tax burden is on the middle wage earner and we pay dearly.
Every one of us, even without being able to go into the tax records of others, can think of examples of people who are very well off. I remember when my wife and I were first married, which is now over 35 years ago, we had a reasonable mid-sized car, some borrowed furniture when we were first married, and I had to pay my taxes. In fact, it was deducted from my earnings every month. I was making a little over $400 a month and $35 a month, as I recall, went to the tax man.
We developed a friendship in the new town in which we lived where there was a couple who were very well off. He drove a large luxury car. They had a beautiful home with all the newest furnishings. He told me that he did not pay any tax ever because he was a successful businessman. He was able to write all of this off. I objected to it at the time. I said I did not think that was fair. He said: "I'm only using the tax rules. I am not doing anything illegal". There is one example.
A much more recent example has to do with the MP pension plan. When Reformers came here, we said and we were directed by our voters, that the members' pension plan is too rich. It costs the taxpayer too much relative to how much we personally put in. On principle we said we wanted out.
The day I went to do my payroll stuff when I was first elected I asked: "Can I opt out of that plan?" I was told that I could not. Two years later the government tinkered with the legislation and included in it a small window of opportunity for those who felt strongly about it to be able to opt out. The unfairness was that for two years we were cut out of RRSP room because we were forced to be in this plan, but when we got the money back we had to pay income tax on the whole amount and were not allowed to roll it into an RRSP equivalent to that same amount. That is an unfairness in the tax system. I think it is a very serious unfairness to me personally. There are many others who would not share that great concern.
There are those inequities. They need to be fixed up. I really believe that the motion before us is an indicator of an unfairness in the system where some individuals can earn large amounts of money and through one method or another can avoid paying their fair share of tax on it. That needs to be corrected.