Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-70 which would harmonize and streamline the GST.
I am not going to deal with the obvious lack of credibility the government has on this issue. That has already been spoken about eloquently by my colleagues. However, I am going to demonstrate that the harmonization of the tax will have an enormous negative impact on the business community in Canada, as well as all Canadians, in particular those who strive to develop business and commerce within Canada.
It is obvious that the harmonization of the tax will have a huge negative impact on Canadians. It is estimated that harmonization will cost Ontarians $3 billion. It will cost three major retailers in the Atlantic provinces over $27 million. The Retail Council of Canada estimates that harmonization and streamlining the GST will cost retailers over $100 million a year.
That will not put Canadians back to work. It will not improve commerce in the country. It will not elevate people out of the egregious taxation system that we have in this country. It will do the exact opposite.
There are solutions, but the government seeks not to employ them for reasons that only it knows.
I cannot think of a tax which is more hated than the GST. There is no tax which compromises the ability of Canadians to use their entrepreneurial spirit, to be the best they can become and to provide for their families, their children and society than this tax. In fact, one-third of the GST is spent merely on its management.
The GST, to the small business people of our communities, is invasive and enormous. It has a strangulation effect on their ability to do business.
If the government would look back in history, it would see that when taxation levels were decreased and simplified it did not decrease the revenues that went into the public coffers, rather they increased. Furthermore, it gave a huge impetus to small and medium size businesses, those business which truly create long term employment in this country. It provided employment and stimulated the economy. If ever there was a time when we needed to decrease unemployment levels and give Canadians some element of security, it is now.
Again the government has chosen to ignore the good solutions out there to simplify and decrease the tax and the GST. For heaven's sake, decrease the GST and enable our businesses to employ their entrepreneurial spirit to become the best that they can become.
I encourage every member in this House, especially those in cabinet and those members on the finance committee, to go out into the trenches and speak to Canadians who are trying to struggle to become the best that they can be in the business community. So many businesses are closing and so many people are losing their jobs.
Many individuals cannot get work and many businesses cannot get on their feet because in part of the taxation system, its levels and complexities. That must change. It is strangling the life out of the Canadian economy. Let us look south of the border at the infusion and stimulation the U.S. has given to its economy by lowering taxation levels, keeping interest rates low and decreasing the morass of entangled, bureaucratic overregulation under which Canadian companies have to suffer.
This is no small point. Canadian companies from coast to coast have to struggle through three levels of bureaucratic entanglements to do business. I sympathize with them. If I were trying to start a business, quite simply I would not. I cannot imagine the courage it takes for them to attempt to get through and overcome the morass of bureaucratic entanglements merely to try to start up a business, hire people and provide for themselves and their families.
Our finance critic from Medicine Hat has put forth many intelligent, eloquent and substantive solutions so that this government can simplify the taxation system, decrease the taxation levels and provide an impetus to our Canadian economy. However, it has gone absolutely nowhere.
One particular short point I would like to make is with respect to how GST affects physicians in this country. People are supposed to be treated equally yet physicians are treated differently. They should be tax exempt under the Excise Tax Act because medical services, equipment and supplies which are necessary to deliver quality care are supposed to be GST exempt. However, of all the medical professions, only one is singled out to not benefit from this and that is the physician population.
The government should immediately enable physicians to be treated equally, not preferentially, but equally with all other medical professions. country. This government has failed to do that and continues to ignore their pleas for fairness and equity.
I must say I am getting absolutely disgusted with this House. This House is supposed to be an area of higher debate. This House is supposed to be a place where we are sent when elected to present the greatest and best solutions to the problems that affect Canadians across the country.
Canadians are crying out for answers yet what we see in this House at best is bad theatre. At worst, it is a shame on all of us to be engaging in the behaviours we see not only in this House but also in committee. We need a radically different view on how we conduct government in this country. We need to remove the control of the executive from the members in this House. Members from across party lines should be getting together, along the lines of what they
do south of the border in the United States, to bring forth the best possible solutions, solutions they could apply to the problems this country has.
There are good solutions across party lines, but we do not see the development of the best solutions applied to the problems of this nation; we hear petty pathetic insults going back and forth. That does not serve this House in any way, shape or form. Most important, it does not serve the Canadian people. There is a complete and utter disarticulation of the problems of people in this country and the high jinks that go on this House.
I hope every Canadian will find out about what is going on in this House. I hope they will make it their business to find out what is happening. I hope Canadians will put pressure on their elected officials to smarten up, get with the program and apply the best solutions to the problems that affect them. This includes not small changes but large changes.
We cannot continue with the form and structure of governance this nation has today and expect things to change. Nothing will change unless we have a radically different way of dealing with issues in this House. We must enable committees to be effective, enable public input at committees and allow them truly to be heard in the legislative process of this House. We must enable the good solutions that exist in the public to be applied to the debates and ultimately become the solutions that are desperately needed for the problems that affect us. Unless we do these things, we will not see the change this country needs and as a result, we will not become the truly great nation we have the capability of being.
I hope the government will listen to this, although I do not think it will. Most important, I hope members of the Canadian public make it their business in the coming election to get involved, to get interested, to get active regardless of their party affiliations. I hope they force their people to do what it is they want them to do.