Somebody had the audacity to say “The Tories”. Absolutely not. I remember those heady days with interest rates of 20%, deficits going up by the second, debt skyrocketing and so on. No, that is not the answer.
Let us say who are the real heroes of the deficit war. They are the students, thousands of students who leave universities and colleges with massive debt loads. They are the real heroes. Another set of heroes are the men, women and children lined up on waiting lists to get into hospitals for critical surgery. They cannot get in because of the cutbacks in health care. They are the real heroes.
The 1.4 million children living in poverty today, their moms and dads, are the real heroes of the deficit war. The many thousands of people who declare bankruptcy every single month of the year are the real heroes. It is not hundreds, not thousands, but many thousands who declare bankruptcy month after month. Personal bankruptcies have never been so high in Canadian history. Business bankruptcies have never been so high in Canadian history.
I am simply saying these are the people who have sacrificed in order for this government to say the deficit war has been won. If these are the real casualties of the war, if these are the people who fought and won the war, should they not be the people who should receive the benefits now that the war is over? No. Are they going to receive the benefits? No.
The government says across the board tax cuts are out. My friends in the Reform Party say they should be in. It is fair to say to my friends on the finance committee, it was clear that Canadians said that they are out, that across the board tax cuts are simply not what they require or even request at this time. Some selected tax cuts, yes.
The government decided that the people who need to have a tax break are the people who pay the maximum into RRSPs. We can lift the ceiling of an RRSP so that those people who have $13,000 or $14,000 in loose change at the end of the year will be able to put more money in. Is this a priority in our country?
Madam Speaker, how many tax filers actually use the maximum RRSP contribution? One per cent? If you said 2% you would be too high. Less than 2% of Canadians now use the maximum RRSP contribution. But the government said we have to raise that to assist that 1% of tax filers as a priority tax measure. This is maddening and it is sort insane. No wonder people look at this place and ask “Who are those folks? What on earth are they doing? What have they been smoking? Where have they been? Who have they listened to?”
May I suggest a tax break that would help everybody, that would help every single citizen of this country immediately. One that would put money into the hands of every single individual, particularly those who have been hardest hit during these tough economic times. It would help every business person, every consumer, every working person, people dependent on social services. That break would be to begin to phase down the GST immediately.
Why would the government not start to phase down the GST? After all, we all remember when it was said that we need the GST to pay down the deficit. The deficit has been paid down. Therefore it would make sense that we start phasing out the GST. Imagine the kind of signal it would send from this place if the Minister of Finance rose on budget day and said “We have now essentially wrestled this deficit lion to the ground. We said we needed the GST to accomplish this. It has been accomplished and now we are going to repay the people. We are going to start phasing out the GST from 7% to 5% in the first year”.