Mr. Speaker, Bill C-92 deals with a budget measure of 1996. It is now April 10, 1997, 14 months since that budget was tabled. The legislation is just now being introduced.
I have a couple of children, one attending university. I saw that I was getting an extra deduction for his education. It has gone from $60 a month for full time attendance at university to $100 a month for full time attendance. I thought it was not bad, but I wondered when it went through. It is going through today. Here it is. Now we know why the government is in such a rush. It is here in Bill C-92 after I did my income tax. After millions of Canadians have done their income tax we now find that the legislation is coming along like the tortoise after the hare. Unlike the tortoise, it does finish first and causes the income tax returns to fall into line, if I may say.
Going through the summary of the act, it is complex and detailed. There are tax credits for individuals, charitable donations, child care expense deductions, child support payments, deferred income plans, foreign reporting rules, non-resident pensioners, all by and large things that are somewhat beneficial to individual taxpayers.
Then I read on, scientific research and experimental development. It introduces a salary cap for SR and ED treatment of salaries of specified employees. This is a tax limitation on a tax break that corporations can get.
No. 9, labour sponsored ventured capital corporations. It reduces the tax credit rate from 20 per cent of the cost of the LSVCC share to 15 per cent, another restriction on tax breaks for corporations.
No. 10, flow through shares. It extends the look back rule to allow qualified expenses incurred at any time in taxation year to be treated as if they were incurred in the preceding years, again a reduction in benefit.
No. 11, resources losses requires an add back to income or 25 per cent of prescribed resource losses, another one that increases the tax liability of corporations.
No. 12, Canadian field processing excludes gas plant processing from activities eligible for the manufacture and processing tax credit, another situation where businesses will pay more tax.
No.13, joint exploration corporations, repeals rules allowing for the renunciation of resource expenses by joint exploration corporation, another situation where corporations will pay more tax.
No. 14, part 6 capital tax, extends the application of additional part 6 tax by one year for banks and other deposit taking institutions and by three years for life insurance corporations, another extension of a tax on corporations.
The minister stood up and said he has not raised taxes. Right here is Bill C-92, coming from the budget of February 1996. Fourteen months later we now have the legislation in front of us. There it is, tax increase, tax increase, everywhere business turns there is a tax increase, all the while the government throws a few shekels to individuals. The government seems to think that there is no limit to how big business can pay more tax.
That is despicable. Who creates the jobs in this country? Business of course. How can business create jobs if they are being taxed into oblivion? That is what the government is doing. It is taxing business into oblivion.
The employment insurance program is turning out to be nothing but a blatant tax grab by the government. According to the latest numbers I saw in the "Fiscal Monitor", the government will run a surplus on employment insurance premiums that exceed benefits paid out under employment insurance by approximately $7.5 billion. That is a $7.5 billion surplus in one year.
The government has dramatically cut back the eligibility of individuals for employment insurance. It has cut back the amount of employment insurance it pays to individuals who manage to qualify. It has made a pitifully small decrease in the amount of premiums paid by individuals and employers. In the course of doing all that up comes the surplus. As more money is coming in and less money is going out, away the surplus goes. The Minister of Finance is taxing business to the point that it cannot create jobs. Then he stands in the House and says that unemployment is still over 9 per cent and he wishes it were coming down. He does not know why it is not coming down. Let me tell him.
If he looks at Bill C-92 he will find out why the unemployment rate is not coming down. There are extra taxes for business under the scientific research and experimental development program, extra taxes for business under labour sponsored venture capital corporations, extra taxes on flow through shares, extra taxes on resource losses, extra taxes on Canadian field processing, extra taxes on joint exploration corporations and an extension of the capital tax for banks and insurance companies. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. That has basically been the rule with Standing Order 73 excepted.
The Minister of Finance thinks he can tax these businesses into the ground and then turn around and say it is their responsibility to create all these jobs. It is time the minister had a few economic lessons from somebody. It just does not work that way.
Let us look at the benefits he has given to individuals. He has made changes to the child care expense. People can now claim child care expenses for people aged 16. We throw young people into young offender institutions long before they are 16. I wonder if that would qualify for a child care deduction. It is an interesting thought: a 16-year-old going off to day care with a lunch bucket in his hand and holding his mommy's hand too. I can see it now.
The government is going too far in thinking it can buy votes from individuals and in taxing businesses into oblivion. I will leave it at that.