Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-70 which deals with the harmonization of the GST.
I would like to discuss a number of issues concerning the competitiveness of Canada's economy and the inability of government to provide small and medium size Canadian businesses, the economic backbone of our nation that employs most people, with the tools to enable them to be competitive not only within the nation but outside the nation.
It has been a great disappointment for me to see the government repeatedly ignore constructive suggestions made by our party and other parties, indeed by backbench MPs of all parties through private members' bills. We have given the government opportunities to make our country greater and stronger. It has repeatedly played politics with the economics of the country. Rather than trying to do the right thing, it has chosen to do the political thing.
Competitiveness relies on a number of issues. It relies on a strong education system. It relies on strong investment in research and development. It relies on a taxation structure that does not hang around the necks of Canadians and corporations like a noose which is pulled progressively tighter and tighter until individuals and companies cannot take any more. It also relies on a structure of rules and regulations that do not inhibit the ability of our private sector to function.
It is unfortunate that over the last 20 years a series of Liberal and Conservative governments have taken it upon themselves to do the exact opposite of what is necessary to make our economy stronger.
The government has chosen to eviscerate education by removing $7 billion in transfer payments to education, health and welfare. That is not the way to build a strong economy.
Our students do not only compete with students in Toronto, Vancouver, Quebec City, Montreal and Moncton. They compete against students in Tokyo, New Delhi, Cape Town, London and New York. The world has a global economy. The traditional nation state borders have virtually disappeared. The globalization that has taken place has made it such that nation states are secondary to the movement of capital and the rules and regulations among different groups of countries.
It is imperative for the government to take a leadership role to maximize the ability of students in secondary and post-secondary institutions and of people in the workplace. They should have access to the skills that will enable them to be competitive. We have to continue to learn to keep our skills up and to ensure that companies are competitive.
It is an unfortunate statistic the money invested in training workers is among the lowest of OECD nations. I believe Canada places 33rd of all OECD nations in its ability to train its workers. That is an absolute embarrassment.
Over the last 15 to 20 years our competitiveness has repeatedly and consistently gone down. Our competitiveness now ranks along with that of Italy. This is an ignominious statistic and not one that we should be proud of.
The solutions to these problems are not rocket science. As I have said before, they have been repeatedly presented by members of the House over the last 3.5 years.
With respect to research and development I congratulate the government for putting $800 million into research. It is the first time that has happened in a long time and I hope it continues. Research is another underpinning of our economy and the ability for us to be competitive.
With respect to taxes the government has done an absolutely appalling job and the HST is but an example. I have demonstrated in my questions that the HST will not provide for tax relief for Canadians or for our companies. It will not do anything of the sort. In many instances it will actually increase taxation levels and the burden upon companies.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business indicated what it felt was important about harmonization and where the proposal of the government under Bill C-70 actually failed. It indicated that a properly harmonized system of sales taxes was far more preferable to the mess we currently have. However, it continued, properly harmonized is defined by the small business community as having one sales tax system across the country at a lower rate than would occur by simply combining the GST with the respective PST with one set of rules and one set of audit procedures, a single remittance requirement and one tax collector.
That does not occur here at all. That is quite unfortunate. The government has had an opportunity. It must provide a harmonized sales tax and decrease the inefficiencies in the system. We are in favour of doing it in the manner in which the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has put forward to the government and to the finance minister. However it was ignored. It is essential, if the government is to harmonize, to bring taxation levels down.
This again is just nibbling around the edges. If the government were truly interested in eliminating that which compromises the ability of our companies to be competitive, the taxation levels, it would not have increased taxes 37 times since it was elected. It is utterly disingenuous for the government to tell Canadian taxpayers that it has not increased taxes. Just a few weeks ago the Minister of Finance increased the CPP payments by 10 per cent over the next few years. The contributions are akin to a tax increase that removes $10 billion from the hands of companies and individuals. That will cost jobs all over the country.
On the one hand we have the government nibbling away on a harmonized sales tax which will not do anything to increase efficiency and reduce the tax burden. On the other hand, on a much larger scale it has increased the tax burden on Canadians. Every family has had its taxes increased by thousands of dollars since the government was elected.
That is part of the reason we have an underground economy which is growing by leaps and bounds. It is part of the reason why when we talk to small and medium size businesses they say they cannot hire anybody because all they do is work and give their money to the tax man. That is what is happening.
In 1992 the government of the day chose to decrease taxes. What happened? The economy was stimulated. Revenues to the government actually increased. What did the government do then? It started to tax wildly. This does not make any sense.
There are numerous examples from around the world to demonstrate that there are ways in which to decrease our taxation system. It can be done in such a way that government revenues will increase and it will be a stimulus to the economy.
The other object in trying to make our companies more competitive is the government getting its own fiscal and monetary house in order. Three and half years ago we provided the government with a concise, specific, detailed and logical plan to bring our deficit down to zero and produce a surplus budget. Right now we would not have deficit spending if the government had chosen to take up our plans. But the government did not adopt our plans and as a result we have a debt that is $100 billion higher today than before.
We have a situation where instead of spending 25 per cent on the moneys taken in by the government, the government now has to pay 40 per cent, that is 40 cents out of every dollar it takes in just on interest on the debt. That is the single greatest threat to all our social programs. If we liken the situation to a pie, when we were elected in 1993, only a quarter of that pie went toward payment of interest on the debt. Now it is 40 per cent and soon enough it will be 50 per cent. As time time passes, as our debts increase, as our interest payments on those debts increase, less and less money will be available to pay for health care, education, welfare, the guaranteed income supplement, old age security, all of those fine social programs we have. All these programs that protect people who do without, who have not, that are meant to protect them so they do not suffer, are being compromised.
Government members like to claim they are the great white knights, that they are the compassionate ones, that they are the ones who are trying to protect the poor and the underprivileged. However, they are actually doing an absolutely huge disservice to Canadians, in particular the poor, by not getting our fiscal house in order.
Fiscal irresponsibility, not getting our deficit down to zero which would produce a surplus budget and bring down the debt, is the single greatest threat to our social programs and the single greatest threat to the poor and the underprivileged. It is the single greatest threat to our ability to provide health care to Canadians in a timely fashion. However, the government continues to play political football with these issues and not lead from the front. It is leading through polls and focus groups but it is not saying what it is going to do.
Perhaps the flavour of what the government has been doing in the last three and a half years can be summarized by an Italian politician from the 19th century who said something like this: "There go my people. I had better find out where they are going so I can lead them". In effect that is what this government has been doing for the most part over the past three and a half years.
However, the government has done some good things. I commend the government members on their ability to increase free trade, in particular in the new Canada-Chile free trade agreement. I applaud them in trying to establish links with other countries. This is very important and they must continue to pursue that as part of their agenda.
There are other issues the government has failed to do which compromise all provinces. In particular, it has compromised the people of Quebec on the issue of Quebec sovereignty. If we look back at history we find that the issue of Quebec nationalism and Quebec sovereignty is something like a sinusoidal curve with public interest on the y axis and time on the x axis. Public interest and political interest increases to a fervour at referendum time. As soon as the referendum is over interest declines to a nadir.
Unfortunately the premier of Quebec, Mr. Bouchard, and the Parti Quebecois are working very strongly to pursue an agenda for separation. Given this very obvious fact, the government is doing nothing to improve interprovincial relations, devolve some federal powers to all provinces, not just Quebec, in a way that would improve the efficiency services like housing, education, manpower and training, health care, which provinces already have responsibility for but which the government attaches strings to.
These are all issues from which all provinces can benefit. If the government were to take a leadership role, it would sit down with all the provinces and ask them what it does best as a federal government and what they do best as a provincial government and then devolve those responsibilities. The feds should do what they do best and the provinces should do what they do best. This would
increase efficiency and decrease the burden on the taxpayer through decreasing costs.
Instead of taking this initiative, the government has done absolutely nothing since the last referendum on this issue. Despite what some people might say, the threat of separation and the threat of a unilateral declaration of independence is causing great uncertainty and is crushing the economic lifeblood out of Quebec.
It is a sad thing for me to see what a wonderful city Montreal was-it still is-an incredible, lively, vibrant and economically strong Montreal when I lived in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s, a place everyone looked to as being a magical place which had so much to offer to Canada. Unfortunately the threat of separation has gutted its economic ability and has decreased the moral of people there. It is a very sad thing to see. It is compromising their ability to get on with their lives and build a strong city not only for Quebec but for all of Canada.
Furthermore, it is compromising the ability of all people of Quebec to be socially and economically strong and stable as individuals, families and communities.
I challenge members again to look at the proposals the Reform Party put forward prior to the last election. They are sensible proposals, fair proposals and proposals that are for all Canadians across the country equally. They are not predicated on a distinct society for one province. They are not predicated on providing laws and regulations and privileges for one province over another. They are based on giving an equal hand to all provinces and all Canadians for the betterment of all people.
I encourage everyone to do this because if the government does not take this issue seriously, if it does not address this issue now, when the next referendum comes along the government will be scurrying to put forth a plan and it will be too late. We will help put forward a good plan for all Canadians. We will help build a stronger Canada for all Canadians. However, we ask this government's co-operation.
We also ask for the co-operation of all honest, well meaning people in Quebec that if they are interested in building a stronger province for themselves, their families, their children and their communities, if they are interested in building a stronger nation, they must join with all of us to do this.
It would be interesting for them to know, if this ever gets out to the people of Quebec, that the issues, fears and aspirations that the people of Quebec have, by and large, are very much the same as those shared by Canadians in every single province.
I do not care whether someone lives in Cache Creek, British Columbia or in Nanaimo, Victoria, Baie Comeau, Toronto, North Bay or in Shediac, the aspirations and the fears of having a job, living in a safe environment, having a future for oneself and one's children and having a stronger future for everybody are shared by all Canadians.
It is within that area of communality that we must come together to build a stronger nation. If we continue to divide this country up into areas, the west, central Canada, the maritimes, Quebec, francophones, anglophones, immigrants, hyphenated Canadians, if we continue to do that then we will have a balkanized nation and we will be just but a shadow of what we can be as a nation.
If, however, we lead from that front and come together in an area of common interest, shoulder to shoulder to build a stronger nation, indeed that is what we will have. We will rightly take our place in the international community as one of its leaders.