Mr. Speaker, to conclude on the issue of taxation, the average Canadian family has suffered a $3,000 drop in real income since 1993, the year the Liberals took office. I do not think I have to say anything more or provide any more information on why the official opposition wants to make tax relief a higher priority than increased government spending. Canadians are taxed to death.
The position of the official opposition is that governments in Canada in aggregate should not consume more than 30% of the GDP. Governments today consume about 43%. Our position is that Canada's intermediate debt reduction target should be to reduce the debt to GDP to 50% by the year 2004, and that our long range target should be to reduce debt to GDP to 20% of GDP by the year 2015.
With respect to fiscal priorities our position is to limit federal spending to a fixed percentage of gross national product and allocate any surplus roughly 50:50 between debt reduction and tax relief. While we acknowledge a need for greater investment in some areas, such as health, research, post-secondary education and research and development, it is our belief that these needs should be met through a reallocation of budgets within the existing envelopes rather than through increased spending.
With respect to tax relief, our tax relief proposals include a $3 billion reduction in EI premiums paid by Canada's employers, and a $12 billion reduction in personal income taxes through raising personal exemptions, adjusting the child care expense deduction and a 50% reduction in capital gains tax. The net effect of these tax relief measures is to remove about 1.3 million lower and middle income Canadians from the federal income tax rolls altogether, including about 300,000 seniors.
On any issue Reformers always want to look at what the people themselves think. In challenging the government's desire to make increased spending its number one priority and in advocating that the highest priority be given to debt reduction and tax relief, Reform is supported by larger and larger numbers of Canadians, as indicated by the recent Compas poll commissioned by the Ottawa Citizen .
The Compas poll found that 89% of Canadians want the largest proportion of the surplus to be used for debt reduction. On average Canadians want the government to put at least 40% of the surplus toward the debt; 72% want the government to hold more discussion before it spends any surplus. Almost half of all Canadians feel the government's status quo pace of debt reduction is too slow. Only 38% of Canadians believe the government has explained its position on debt and taxes well, while almost 60% believe Reform has done a good job.
Eighty-two per cent of Canadians say that taxes are just too high, with 52% of Canadians holding this position intensely. Fifty-nine per cent of Quebeckers agree a lot that taxes are too high compared with 53% nationally. Perhaps the best thing the government could do to persuade Quebeckers to remain in Canada is to simply stop taxing them to death. Eighty per cent of Canadians believe that the basic personal exemption should be raised and 82% of Canadians agree that tax cuts will create jobs.
When Reform advocates that debt retirement and tax relief be made the highest fiscal priorities of this government, we are not arguing some peripheral right wing extreme position. We are advancing a proposition that has massive and growing support from people of all persuasions and types across the entire country.
I have referred to the principal deficiencies of the finance committee report, namely its inadequate attention to debt reduction and higher taxes. But there is one other serious flaw to which I would like to draw the attention of the House.
The cover of the finance committee report, as well as the structure of its table of contents, reflects what logicians refer to as a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy arises when one sets up categories for organizing data that lead to false or misleading conclusions, for example, when one treats as opposites things that are not opposites, or when one treats as complementary things that are not complementary.
The cover of the finance committee report shows a balance scale. On the balance scale pictured on the cover of that report, all the fiscal factors, debt and taxes, are shown on one side of the scale and all the social factors, like social security, education, health and the well-being of youth are shown on the other side, as if a greater increase in fiscal responsibility would result in a decrease in social security or vice versa.
Apparently this government thinks that helping people and cutting debt and taxes are opposites, when in fact the two measures are complementary. They ought to be on the same side of the scale, not on opposite sides of the scale. In a moment I hope to demonstrate this beyond any reasonable doubt to members of the House.
In the remainder of this take note debate, the official opposition will make the case for debt retirement and tax relief more strongly than it has ever been made in this House. My colleagues, such as the official opposition finance critic, the member for Medicine Hat, the official opposition critic for revenue, the member for Calgary Southeast, and other members will present as strongly as possible the facts, the arguments and the reasons for debt reduction and tax relief.
We will argue that high taxes hurt our trade competitiveness, that they kill jobs and reduce disposable income. We will argue that high debt is costly and renders us extremely vulnerable to interest rate and exchange rate fluctuations.
But members of the House will know that arguments based on fiscal rationality do not move this government. If they did, the government would have committed itself to balancing the budget through genuine spending reduction rather than tax increases and it would already be committed to debt reduction and tax relief.
I am going to take another tack. This government never ceases to tell us that it has a great and enlightened social conscience, that its real priority is helping people and caring for the disadvantaged. Therefore for the purposes of this debate at least, I am going to take that profession at face value. I will therefore present the argument for debt retirement and tax relief from an entirely social perspective.
I want to present the House with the argument that high debt and high taxes are socially irresponsible, that they hurt millions of people, that they carry a heavy social cost. I want to argue that debt relief and tax relief are not only fiscally beneficial but they are socially beneficial, that they help millions of people, including the most vulnerable members of society. Then let the Canadian people see if the government is really as committed to social responsibility as it claims to be. Let us see if it can be moved by social arguments to give the highest priority to debt reduction and tax relief.
Let me start with the negative social impacts of pyramiding debt and interest payments. The pyramiding of the debt of the federal government to $583 billion has led as I said to annual interest payments of $45 billion or $3,200 per year per person, for every working Canadian.
This annual debt service bill is enough to run the governments of Newfoundland, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta for an entire year with enough left over to pay the entire public debts of Newfoundland, New Brunswick and P.E.I. This annual debt service bill is enough to pay the tuition for four million Canadian young people to finish a four year university course. Just the annual debt service bill is enough to pay for federal transfers to the provinces for health, education, welfare, equalization and old age security for a year. It is enough to pay for all Canadian hospitals, physicians and drug costs for an entire year. It is enough to provide every poor child in Canada with a $30,000 a year endowment.
It is the interest on the federal debt that is eating the heart out of the social transfers. It is no accident that since 1993 debt service charges have increased by $7.5 billion a year and that since 1994 government has reduced health and social transfers to the provinces by $7 billion.
The excessive federal debt, like private debt, limits freedom. It limits the freedom of governments to pursue social as well as economic goals. The federal government would have at least the option of committing more resources to health, education, and pensions if this huge percentage of its annual budget was not consumed by interest payments.
If the federal debt were reduced and stabilized, funding for essential services would be stabilized and assured. The government and people of Canada would have more social and economic freedom and we would stop mortgaging the future of young Canadians.
Lower debt is the key to social security for both the current and future generations of Canadians. I would suggest to those members of this House who profess to have enlightened social consciences, who profess to be moved by social arguments, that if they care for the poor, the sick, the old and the young, then they should be the most committed members in this House to the reduction of the federal debt.
Let me look at the negative social impacts of excessive taxation. We have made arguments in this House before that excessive taxes reduce disposable incomes of business and are the greatest factor in killing jobs. There is a connection between the fact that we have higher taxation levels than our principal trading partners and the fact that we have 1.4 million people unemployed, two to three million underemployed and one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. If a good job with a good income is the best guarantee of economic and social security, then it is excessive taxation in this country which is undermining the economic and social security for millions of Canadians.
I want to discuss a further dimension of excessive taxation. It has a particularly onerous and insidious impact on the most vulnerable among us, the young, the old and the poor. Under this federal government's tax policies a single mother with one child and an income of $15,000 pays $1,364 in income tax. I ask, what is the government doing taking one paycheque out of 12 from a single mother with one child making $15,000 a year?
The federal government starts taxing people at lower income levels, $6,500 a year, than either Britain where it starts at $9,000 a year, or the United States where it starts at $9,500 a year. Canada has one of the lowest first bite levels, the level at which personal income tax kicks in, in the industrial world. It is far lower than those in Hong Kong, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Japan, the U.S., Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain. In fact taxpayers in most countries are permitted to earn upward of $15,000 before they begin paying taxes. Not in Canada and we ask, why not?
This government rips $1.8 billion out of the pockets of people making less than $15,000 a year. The government takes $11.2 billion out of the pockets of almost eight million taxpayers making less than $30,000 a year.
The government, and we have heard this from the ministers, accepts Statistics Canada's low income cutoff figures as measures of the number of Canadians living in poverty. But here is the amount of revenue the federal government collects from these very people whom it claims to recognize as living in poverty or near poverty.
According to Statistics Canada, the low income cutoff for a single individual was around $17,000 a year. Taxation statistics show us that in 1995, which is the year for the latest data, there were almost 3.4 million taxpayers earning less than $17,000 a year, or that were in this low income position. What did the federal government do for them? It taxed them to the tune of $2.3 billion. These are people the government itself says are living in poverty.
The low income cutoff for a family of four in the same city was about $32,000. There were over 8.2 million taxpayers earning less than $32,000. What did the federal government do? It taxed those people to the tune of $12.5 billion. It took $12.5 billion in taxes from people its own statistics define as living in poverty or near poverty.
My point is that the tax policies and practices of the federal government hurt lower income people as well as middle and higher income people. The greatest single thing this government can do to help the poor is not to develop another program for poverty and not to develop another program on child poverty but simply to get its hands out of the pockets of lower income people and leave them more money.
Enough statistics. To illustrate this point more effectively, I want to read to the House a letter I received from a New Brunswick mother of four in February 1997. Her name is Kim Hicks. She lives near Sackville, New Brunswick and she and her family are with us today in the gallery.
I receive some 2,000 letters a month on average, but her letter was one of the best I have ever received. I want to share it with the House. It is dated February 27, 1997:
Dear Mr. Manning:
Hello, first of all my name is Kim Hicks. I am married and we have four children aged 2-8 years. My husband is the breadwinner in our family and our income is $29,000 to $30,000 a year approximately. Last year, 1996, our income was a little over $33,000 because we withdrew our RRSPs, my husband worked a lot of overtime and took his vacation pay without a vacation, which means that we now owe $900 in income tax, and lose money on our GST and child tax benefit which we depend on to get by.
My concern is this. We feel as though we are drowning with no sign of relief in sight. I have talked to other families in the same situation and they feel the same way. It seems as though people like us are forgotten. We are not considered working poor, but we sure don't feel middle class.
I know you are probably thinking that I am a whining lazy stay at home mom, who was irresponsible in having four children, but we love them dearly and we want to do what we feel is best for them and that is why I stay at home. Truthfully sometimes we do feel that we were irresponsible but my husband works hard. Also we live in an area outside Sackville, New Brunswick and it would not be easy to get child care or transportation. I have no special skills and cannot afford to upgrade my working skills and quite frankly I feel that at this point in time my kids need me at home, not that by any means I look down on working women. I don't, I sometimes envy them. I'm sorry there is so much that I want to say but don't quite know how.
We feel resentment toward the politicians and afraid to be Canadians.
My husband says maybe we should go on welfare, at least then we would have health care and dental benefits. We do manage to buy some health care, but for how long we don't know. It seems as though only people with incomes under $26,000 a year and those on welfare need help, and that is not true. There are other families who need help. We want our kids to grow up feeling proud of their country and to feel secure, but it's not going to happen. For us who fall just above the $26,000 mark less seems better, then maybe we wouldn't have to worry that because we make $29,000 or $30,000 we might lost our child tax benefit.
We need that benefit or else we would lose our home. Our kids won't be going to the dentist this year, but the child down the road, whose mom is on welfare, will. We have refinanced and refinanced and we just can't do it any more. We live on credit because we do not have enough clear money to use money. Pay the needed payment and then borrow it over. We are sick of it. People with four kids who make $30,000 a year are poor too, but our kids don't count. By the time we pay our taxes our $29,000 to $30,000 is a joke. We are afraid that we are going down and there is nothing we can do.
Promises and empty talk—we are sick of it. We are trying to be a family in a time when family means squat. Also now with this new HST we will pay more for our kids' clothing, heat, power, telephone. We don't buy big ticket items. We pray our washer will wash one more load, and that it will be nice out so that we can put our clothes on the line to save on electricity and so that the squeaky drier will be there when we need it. We, again, are going to lose and so will our kids.
I'm sorry for this long letter. I really don't know what I expect. I wrote to Mr. Axworthy when he was human resources minister. I got an I'm sorry and an I understand and a lot of statistics that I don't care about. It won't help us feed or clothe our kids.
Please don't send me one of those short form letters saying that you're sorry. Also please don't tell me to contact my MLA or premier—they don't care.
Thank you for your time. Sincerely,
Kim Hicks
Are members moved by that letter? What do we say to Kim Hicks and others like her? What does the government have to say? What does the finance minister have to say? What does the finance committee report have to say? Would this create a great impression in that home if it were sent in a paper envelope to that family? Here is the answer to your problems. We know what kind of reaction it would get.
When I first read this I was at a loss for words. That is quite an admission from a politician. Let me tell the House what I finally did.
I wrote Kim back, thanking her, assuring her she was not alone. I wondered whether anything I could say would help. My letter was almost apologetic.
I then shared with her, briefly, the tax relief section of our fresh start election platform. We were working on it at that time. I pointed out that under those tax relief measures she and her husband would receive $2,500 to $3,000 in tax relief. In effect, a family like this would have been removed from the federal income tax rolls altogether.
I did not hear back from Kim, but I carried her letter around with me through the 1997 federal election campaign. I read it to public audiences in a number of places.
After it was over I wrote her again and I told Kim that we were not the government but we were now the official opposition. I asked her if she and her family would do a little research project for us. I would send her a research contract and a cheque from party funds for $3,000 plus. What I asked her to do was to pretend that the cheque came from Revenue Canada as a tax refund. I asked her to pretend it was a $3,000 tax refund from Revenue Canada, as if our tax relief measures had been implemented and applied to the 1996 tax year.
Incidentally, we had to send her $3,000 plus. Why? To cover the income tax she would have to pay on the $3,000 so that her net refund would be $3,000.
Then I asked Kim to do two things. I asked her to write two more letters, one telling us how she and her husband Wayne spent the $3,000. What would she do with it if she got it from Revenue Canada? I also asked her to tell me frankly what impact, if any, this had on her feelings of entrapment and despair.
I now want to read into the record the first of those two letters received from Kim. Before I do, let me give members a little quiz. If they have a pad in front of them they might just jot down a few notes.
How do they think a mother of four would spend that refund of $3,000? Do they believe she would spend it all? Do they think she would save a portion? What do they think she would spend it on? What would be the allocation? Do they think she would spend it wisely or foolishly? Do they think she would spend it more wisely than the federal government could spend it on her behalf? We will let the members be the judge.
This is her first letter, dated July 23, 1997:
Dear Mr. Manning:
The following letter describes how my family spent the $3,000 in tax relief that we received “from Revenue Canada”.
She was willing to play the game.
My husband and I carefully looked at how to best use the money and we decided that the best plan for us was to divide the money into a spend category and a savings category. We divided the money $2,000 and $1,000.
The $2,000 we spent as follows:
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The first thing this money enabled us to do was to pay our two older boys' dentist bill and gave us the amount needed for our two younger sons' trip to the dentist.
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The next thing we did was to set aside $200 for one of our son's visits to the optometrist in October, and to have a new pair of glasses which are badly needed.
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We bought the extra wood that we will need for the winter.
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We paid off one of our credit card balances thereby easing our monthly payment load, which in turn gives us a bit more money to use toward other bills.
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The boys and I went shopping for back to school clothing and I set aside money for their school books.
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I took a trip to the grocery store and bought the items that we needed but could not afford to buy with our weekly grocery money.
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I paid my mother back the money that she has loaned us over the past few months when we have found ourselves in a bind owing over $800 in income taxes.
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Lastly we decided to take $200 of the money and to spend it any way we wished. We bought Kentucky Fried Chicken and we went to see the movie “George of the Jungle”. My husband, along with his regular hours, has had to start working Saturday mornings and also two to three evenings a week to help make ends meet. He only takes one week of his vacation and we use the other week's vacation pay to buy wood. What this means is that we have never taken a vacation trip with our children, but this year we are taking the $125 left from the $2000 and we are driving to Pictou, taking the ferry to P.E.I. and driving back across the bridge to N.B. It feels great.
With the other $1,000 that we have left, we for now have put it into a savings account to use in the case of an emergency or to hopefully buy an RRSP, which would give us a start at some future savings.
That in a nutshell is how we spent the $3,000 sent to us by Revenue Canada. I am looking forward to writing my next letter.
Sincerely,
Kim Hicks.
I can look at that letter as a husband and parent or I can look at it as a former management consultant and economist, but notice that her savings rate is over 33%. If I asked some economist friends of mine what they thought the savings rate would be of a family in the $30,000 a year category, they would never guess that it would be 33%.
Notice that her highest priority expenditure is meeting the medical and educational needs of her children. Notice the commitment to debt reduction. There is more commitment to debt reduction in this letter than there is from a government that receives $150 billion a year. She pays down her loans and her credit card balances.
Note the spending on essentials, wood and groceries for the family. Note the desire to have an RRSP. There is a lot of criticism when we talk about expanding the RRSP about people at the lower and income level not wanting it or understanding it. Here is a family earning $30,000 willing to save to put into an RRSP. Notice the $200, 7%, for a little fun.
Is there any member in this House, any bureaucrat at human resources development or finance, who has the nerve to stand up and say they could have spent that money more wisely or more socially responsibly?
Some of the social engineers on the other side of the House or among the Bloc or the NDP might argue that some government could design a program complete with legislation, forms and armies of bureaucrats and social workers which would deliver $1,000 to that family for debt relief, $1,000 through another program for child, dental and optometrist care, and $500 to $1,000 through some other program for essentials. However, there would be one problem with that. It would probably cost us $30,000 per family to administer.
In this case, we got exactly the same results, not with another program but simply by leaving—and this is so pathetically simple—$3,000 of this family's own money in their own pockets instead of collecting it in taxes.
This reminds me of that famous quote from Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations , which I think is applicable to social capital as well as industrial capital:
The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
How did this tax relief make this family feel? Frankly, I confess that when I wrote this letter to Kim and made this proposition I was pretty sceptical, given the feelings she expressed in that first letter, that the $3,000 would make much of a difference. I thought it would just be a drop in the bucket and not enough to do anything. However, I want members to be the judge. This is her last letter in response to my request:
Dear Mr. Manning,
I would be happy to explain to you how receiving $3,000 in tax relief “from Revenue Canada” has made my family feel both now and for the future.
I say to the officials of Revenue Canada if they did more of this they would get letters like this.
The first feeling my husband and I experienced was a sense of relief. It was as if a weight had been lifted from our shoulders and we could finally catch our breath.
It meant that we could have the money for those things that kept having to be overlooked such as trips to the dentist, borrowed money that couldn't be paid back, or a simple family trip.
It meant for the first time in a very long while that we could have some guilt-free fun. By this I mean we actually took our children to the movies and out for supper without sitting there worrying about “how are we going to get the money to replace what we just spent, when we didn't have it to spend in the first place?”.
But most importantly, after the initial feeling of relief, we felt less pressure and worry.
As a family struggling to get by there is a lot of guilt and insecurity associated with the pressure of just trying to make ends meet when there is a lack of money.
My husband feels guilty because, even though he works hard, he still feels that as a provider he lets his family down, not only financially but time wise also. I feel guilty because as a stay at home mom I sometimes feel I am robbing my family of income we could have if I held a job.
All this guilt affects our family life—the way we feel, the tension and stress. We do manage to keep our emotions and worry in check, most times, in hopes that we will not cause our children to feel as we do, although I know there are times when they feel as we do—receiving this money made my husband and me feel a lot less guilty. I actually saw a happier, more relaxed man, which in turn made our family more carefree and closer than we have been in a while. I'm not saying that money in itself solves problems, but it helps to relieve the pressures caused by a lack of it and that in turn helps to give us a brighter outlook and a happier family.
Mr. Manning, as I write this letter I feel really great because I know that we have provided some of the things that our children needed, which prior to receiving our tax relief cheque we simply could not do. I have gone to sleep at night with a feeling of being more secure because I know that our kids have been better taken care of and that if a problem should arise we do have money set aside in a savings account. It feels great to know that we have fewer bills and that because we do not have to borrow money or take from other needs, we will be able to hold on, and that the money won't be so tight, and in time we will be ahead. And that means, to us, a brighter future.
It makes my husband and me feel a sense of encouragement knowing that we have someone in government who understands our needs and our struggles as a family, and who realizes the heavy tax burden that a family like mine carries, and is trying to help, and that gives us a sense of hope for our future and our children's future. Our children can grow up knowing that Canada is wonderful and that they have a government who cares, not one that will squeeze every last cent out of their paycheques.
We feel that we have to have this tax relief. We really carry too much tax burden. Recently my husband asked his boss for a raise and, to us, he received a substantial raise of $44/week, that is until he received his paycheque and realized he had lost $27 of the $44. Mr. Manning, $24.18 went to Federal Taxes alone! Do you understand why I cannot say enough about why a $3,000 tax relief is needed? Families like my own do not want the $3,000 for frivolous spending; we need it to maintain a half-decent standard of life for our families, and $3,000 is a substantial amount of money.
In closing, I just want to stress again that this $3,000 meant relief and security and a bit more freedom for us. If my family and families like mine could look forward to this $3,000 tax relief each year, it would, I am sure, restore some faith in our government and it would relieve a lot of guilt, pressure, and worry from our lives. We could provide more of the things our families need, both necessities and even leisure.
Extra income in our pocket would give us a sense of security. We could actually see some light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. I know in my case it has helped to take away some of the desperation I feel. It has definitely made our lives easier and has made us feel happier and even encouraged. There is great pleasure in feeling that you have provided for your family a little bit better.
I am going to close now. I hope—that I have answered your question sufficiently. Thank you once again for the privilege of allowing my family to participate in this research project.
Note the references to feelings of relief, security and freedom: relief from worry, relief from guilt, security, better able to sleep at night, hope for the future and freedom. I wonder how many letters Revenue Canada gets like that. Is it not about time we started generating some letters like that for Revenue Canada?
On behalf of members of Parliament I thank Kim Hicks; her husband, Wayne; and her children, Matthew, Brandon, Nathan and Luke for sharing their hearts and their lives with us. It is not easy to do and we thank you for putting it down on paper.
There are hundreds of thousands of families in Canada like Kim's earning $30,000 a year or less from whom the federal government is collecting $11.2 billion a year. Is there any member of the House who still believes that tax relief, especially for lower and middle income families, is not a socially responsible thing to do?
I began my remarks with a reference to the Christmas story as told in the New Testament. The heart of my remarks has really been the Kim Hicks story which ought to move us to tears as well as to action.
I want to end this address with one more story that will perhaps reduce the Minister of Finance to tears or induce him to action. It is a modern adaptation of Dickens Christmas Carol with particular reference to the issue before the House.
Once upon a time there was a finance minister named Scrooge. To borrow a few adjectives from Dickens, he was a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old finance minister. His one great passion in life was taxes, and as the year drew to an end he would spend the last part of it, particularly the Christmas season, laying plans for new taxes he wanted to impose in the new year.
Scrooge had a humble clerk named Bob Hatchet. Hatchet assisted the minister in cutting spending but desperately wanted to apply his tools to cutting taxes. This particular year Hatchet came to Scrooge with the revelation that he, Scrooge, was collecting $1.8 billion a year from the poorest families in the land. “Would it not” said Hatchet “be a great act of social and fiscal responsibility to cut taxes for these people and to announce it at Christmas, effective for the new year?”
What was the response of finance minister Scrooge to this proposal? He replied as he always did to requests for tax relief by saying “Bah, humbug” and by saying further “every idiot who goes about with tax relief on his lips, especially at Christmastime, should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart”.
To add force to his words, he told Hatchet and his other officials that not only would there be no tax relief this Christmas, but starting January 1 he would commence collecting the first instalment of a 76% hike in payroll taxes. “Tax relief, bah, humbug” said finance minister Scrooge, and with that he went home for Christmas.
Then it was Christmas Eve. Picture this. Scrooge had retired early. To induce sleep some people count sheep but not Scrooge. He counted the tax increases that he had been responsible for: the tax on life insurance premiums extended, the increased clawback on OAS, the excise tax on gasoline, et cetera, et cetera. He had just got up to tax increase number 37 when he fell into a fitful slumber.
Scrooge knew not how long he had slumbered but suddenly he was awakened by a strange clanking sound. To his horror, the door of his room flew open and there stood a ghostly apparition. The thing was dragging a huge chain behind it to which were bound immense volumes of the Canadian Income Tax Act and its regulations.
“Who are you” cried finance minister Scrooge, to which the apparition replied in a ghoulish voice “I am the ghost of taxes past. My name is Sir William Thomas White. I too was once finance minister of Canada. When I was alive I introduced the Income War Tax Act in 1917. It was only 12 pages long. It was temporary. It was a tiny tax. But I added to it and my successors added to it, until it became a monster. Now I am condemned to haunt the halls of parliament, forever dragging great volumes of the Income Tax Act and its regulations behind me”.
Scrooge was alarmed, for he too had forged many links in the chain of taxation. “Is this my fate too” he cried. “Not necessarily” said the spirit. “All will depend on what you learn from the visits of my fellow spirits, the ghost of taxes present and the ghost of taxes future”. With that, the apparition disappeared.
Finance minister Scrooge tried to pull himself together. Surely this was a bad dream, he told himself, a Reformish nightmare of some sort; perhaps the product of indigestion; perhaps a bad pickle at the parliamentary restaurant. He settled down to sleep but in a few moments he was jolted awake again by the loud honking of a horn.
At first he thought it was the sound of a Panamanian freighter and he smiled serenely, but suddenly the door to his bedroom flew open and there stood another ghostly figure. “I am here to take you for a ride” said the ghost of taxes present. “But I don't want to go for a ride” said finance minister Scrooge. “That's what they all say” said the apparition who hurried him down the stairs, out of the house and into a waiting cab, a taxicab.
As soon as they were in, the doors locked shut. The meter began to run. It ran wild as the ghost of taxes present directed the driver to their destination. The ghost of taxes present took finance minister Scrooge to visit businesses small and large where payroll taxes were cursed out loud day after day by both employers and employees. They visited shops where the hated GST was funnelling millions of dollars out of the pockets of shopkeepers.
The ghost of taxes present took finance minister Scrooge to home after home, homes where there were sick people, homes where there were poor people, homes where there were old people, homes of the middle class, all homes where Scrooge's taxes were squeezing the life out of men, women, children and families. Scrooge tried to get out of the cab but the doors were locked. The meter kept spinning wildly, the taxi meter: $50 billion, $75 billion, $100 billion, $125 billion.
The taxi stopped once more outside a house which Scrooge recognized as the humble abode of his assistant Bob Hatchet. Inside he saw poor Bob talking earnestly to his son, Tiny Tim. He was trying to explain how the working income supplement component of Scrooge's child tax benefit, when applied to Scrooge's harmonized goods and services tax, would actually reduce the effective tax rate on crutches and candy canes to less than 10%.
But Tiny Tim would have none of it. Holding his head in his hands the little fellow ran round the room crying “God save us, everyone, from finance minister Scrooge”.
“Dread Spirit” cried finance minister Scrooge “where will all this end? What is the fate of these poor overtaxed businesses, these poor overtaxed families like Tiny Tim's? What will happen to their lives and their dreams?” “You will soon see” said the ghost of taxes present.
Scrooge found himself once again in the taxicab, hurtling this time down a lonely country road. The night was dark and dreary, black clouds blotted out the moon and stars. The taxi slowly came to a halt. The door was slowly opened by yet another ghostly figure. Finance minister Scrooge shuddered, the ghost of taxes future. This apparition was faceless, dressed all in black. He said not a word but motioned toward the gate of what Scrooge perceived to be a vast cemetery.
Scrooge shivered as the faceless spirit led him past a long line of tombstones, announcing in a sepulchral voice “Here lie the businesses killed by taxation. Here lie the jobs killed by high taxes. Here lie the charities killed by high taxes, which shrivelled the spirit of charity”. “Oh, spare me” cried Scrooge, but the spirit led him on “In this vast plot lie all the dreams: the dreams of entrepreneurs, the dreams of homemakers, the dreams of business people, the dreams of youth, the dreams of Tiny Tim, all killed by the clammy hand of overtaxation”.
“Oh, show me no more ” cried finance minister Scrooge. “I see the light. I will re-examine my policies but tell me, dread spirit, how is it that even dreams can be killed by taxation?” “Even the loftiest of dreams can be killed by taxation” said the ghost of taxes future. “Look” and with this he pointed bony finger toward a huge marble monument, a tomb of some sort on which was inscribed a long list of names.
Scrooge strained to read the names: Sir William Thomas White, James Lorimer Ilsley, Douglas Charles Abbott, Donald Methuen Fleming, Walter Lockhart Gordon, Edgar John Benson, John C. Crosbie, Michael Holcombe Wilson. The list went on and on.
Scrooge gasped as he recognized the names, all former finance ministers of Canada. “But why, dread sprit, are their names inscribed on this tomb in this cemetery of dreams?” “Because” said the ghost of taxes future “their great dream was to become prime minister and their dream was killed by their high tax policies”.
Let us leave finance minister Scrooge standing before that great monument to broken dreams and let the government determine whether this story has a happy or a mournful ending.
Will finance minister Scrooge dismiss the warnings of the ghosts of taxes past, present and future and continue his high taxing ways? Or, will he listen to the voices of social and fiscal responsibility, the voices of Reform, the voices of mothers like Kim Hicks, the voices of millions of Canadians, and make debt and tax relief his new priorities?
It is the objective of the official opposition to persuade him to take the latter course.
