Madam Speaker, Bill C-10 makes me angry for several reasons. First, the Liberals tried to convince people this was merely a technical change. They tried to hide the fact that it was a tax grab. Second, the Liberals tried to force the bill through committee so that nobody would be able to recognize it as the tax grab it was before it was okayed in parliament.
I will now talk about Mr. Farrel Mok. He receives a disability pension from the United States. He is legally blind. He has recently undergone a liver transplant and his medication costs are very high. Prior to 1996 Mr. Mok's pension was treated as tax exempt, but that is no longer the case. Under the third protocol there was a 25.5% tax at source. He was totally unprepared for the tax grab the government quickly imposed without warning in the new fourth protocol.
Mr. Mok says the disability pension is his major source of income and he is incapable of working. The imposition of the tax on his revenue has caused “tremendous hardship” as described by Mr. Mok. The fourth protocol will cause even greater hardship since he now must include 85% of his pension in his taxable personal income.
Mr. Mok says that although his situation is bad he knows that others are much worse and that it will be even harder for persons who receive disability pensions and are residents in health care facilities. These people are in danger of being forced to leave the facilities because they will no longer be able to afford the cost of the care.
It basically goes to some of the tenets of what the Liberal Party stands for in this regard. They are arrogant and out of touch. They are elitist because they think they know better. When it all comes to naught and we scratch below the surface, they are tax and spend Liberals.
Under the second protocol Canada taxed about 50% of what was coming in, in U.S. social security benefits. Then under the third protocol it was split between the two governments. They both had a crack at roughly 25% of the money that was coming in. Now with the fourth protocol we have not only gone back to the process whereby Canada has full jurisdiction on this taxation so it can once tax 50% but the Liberals have upped it. The Liberal government has upped it to 85%.
The taxman had the whole arm of seniors. Then that was changed by the third protocol and the taxman shared the arm. The United States got half of it and the Canadian tax man got the other half. Under the fourth protocol the Canadian taxman has the first part of the arm he had to begin with and the part the United States used to have before. Since it has been tacked up to 85% he is taking an extra share of what the seniors have left. That demonstrates exactly what is going on with Bill C-10, the tax protocol.
I have heard people across the way say that the bill has been out there for two years. There is nobody to blame for the bill being out there for two years but the Liberals. Liberal tax increases have been out there since Confederation. I wish people would finally realize what is going on.
I have some questions about legislation as it comes before the House. These are litmus tests which I believe can be applied to most legislation that comes before the House. The first question is who wants it. The 45,000 to 50,000 seniors who receive their social security benefits from the United States do not want an 85% inclusion rate.
Let us look at some of the other stakeholders. Is it the 50,000 people across the boarder in the United States who receive OAS and some of our Canada pension plan benefits? No, they do not want it either. If it affects people who collect social security benefits in the United States, there is a good chance that it will have impact on Canadians in the United States who are collecting some of their benefits. That is a total of 100,000 people who do not want it.
The only other stakeholder in the group is the Canadian government, the taxman, the finance minister and the revenue minister. They are the only people who want it.
Then we have to ask who will pay for it. The American government will not pay for it. The Canadian government will not pay for it. The people who pay taxes are the seniors who planned on receiving the benefit and not having it taxed at an 85% inclusion rate. That is who will pay for it. It will be on the backs of seniors.
Once again the Liberals have brought in 37 tax increases. The Canada pension plan increase is the 38th. The government has a record of tax increases since it took office in 1993. Once again the taxpayer will pay for it.
This time it is particularly insidious because it is not hitting all taxpayers. The government is going after a small group of taxpayers, 50,000 senior citizens. They are the ones who will pay the bill. Those people who have worked and helped build the country are being taxed at an 85% rate of inclusion when it used to be 50%. The Liberals have the audacity to claim it was somehow a technical change and not a net tax grab. When taxes go from 50% to 85% it is a huge tax grab, tax hike. Shame on the Liberals for calling it a mere technical change.
Who will slip through the cracks? The Liberal said they would give a tiggly-wiggly rebate to some people. What about the people who moved? What about the people who die? What about those people who were not on the government records for the rebate? Those are the ones who will slip through the cracks.
The Liberals think that by putting through the legislation and calling it a technical tax bill somehow they will be able to pull the wool over the eyes of Canadians and slip this through. My alternative is not to impose an 85% inclusion tax rate. That is the Reform solution. The government does not need more money. It spends it unwisely.