Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to address this issue.
I must answer the parliamentary secretary's comments. He asserted at the beginning of his speech that the government had not increased personal tax rates. That is true but there are more ways other than raising personal tax rates to take more money from Canadian taxpayers. It is very important to point that out.
Another way the government can take money away from Canadian taxpayers is to change how it defines income. That is exactly what the government has done, and we must point that out.
The 1997 budget documents say that the only way to judge the impact of taxes is to measure the increase in taxes against growth in the economy. That is a good way of doing it. When we look at the growth in personal income taxes in Canada versus the size of the economy since the government came to power they have gone up over 14 per cent. The government has done that by redefining income. It has removed legitimate deductions so that overall Canadians have faced an increase in taxation. Ultimately that means that Canadians are paying more and more money.
That is why revenues have gone up over $24 billion in four years. That was not because of growth in the economy. Growth in the economy would not come anywhere near to accounting for that growth in revenue. Obviously the government has closed up legitimate deductions that Canadian families rely on. The result has been that the government does not need to make the cuts in departmental spending that it promised to make in the 1995 budget.
In other words the government cut the heart out of health care and higher education. They were cut by 40 per cent. It has closed more hospitals in the country than any premier. That is a fact. It has cut the heart out of higher education. Many university students are struggling to pay back loans because the government has cut back so dramatically in areas of higher education.
When it came to departmental spending, when it came to cutting in its own backyard despite its promise that it would cut by 19 per cent, the government failed to cut anywhere near that. It came up to about half that amount. The government went on a spending binge. It spent money on flags, on television production funds and all kinds of ridiculous things. It gave away money to Bombardier which just announced a $400 million profit.
The government has completely failed Canadians in the vital areas where the government should be responsible. It failed to provide the levels of health care funding that Canadians deserve and want. It failed to provide levels of higher education funding that Canadians truly deserve.
Contrary to what the parliamentary secretary says the budget deserves even more debate. We need to talk more about all these changes. We do not need to force it through committee before second reading. We need to have some real debate.
I want to follow up a bit more on what the parliamentary secretary said. He talked about personal income tax rates and I have addressed that. He failed to mention the government raised taxes in other areas: $1.5 billion for fuel taxes. We cannot ignore that. Canadians drive a lot. It is a big country. That impacts on all kinds of people.
Let us not try to suggest that because the government did not raise personal income tax rates people have not felt the rise in taxes. That is ridiculous.
Let us also talk about the massive $10 billion increase in CPP premiums the government has spearheaded. We just had the former parliamentary secretary for finance, the member from Winnipeg, saying in the newspaper in Winnipeg the other day that in 15 years we would have to revisit CPP. As he pointed out, young Canadians know that the changes being made are simply not adequate. They do not address the concerns of young Canadians. It is just like 30 years ago when the Liberal government brought in the CPP on an unsustainable footing. We will be put in the same situation because of the changes the Liberal government is bringing in now. We will be put in that same situation.
The member from Winnipeg has been honest with Canadians in pointing that out. There have been $10 billion in increases on hard working Canadian taxpayers. Ultimately the Canada pension plan will not be put on a sustainable footing. I am glad the member from Winnipeg had the courage to point that out. He deserves some credit.
I want to talk about some specifics in Bill C-92, for example the child care expense deduction. The government will raise the maximum age of children with respect to who may claim the deduction from 14 years to 16 years of age. How many people put children who are 16 years old in child care? Is that really a good use of precious government resources right now? It is ridiculous.
When people in Ontario were polled a margin of 7:1 said they would much prefer tax relief for the entire family as opposed to putting more money into child care. Effectively that is what this change does. Instead of listening to the bureaucrats, instead of using our own petty reserve of judgment which the government has done, let us listen to the Canadian people. They are telling us, said by a margin of 7:1, that they want tax relief for the entire family.
Not coincidentally that is exactly what the Reform Party proposed in our fresh start platform. We say that parenting is valuable irrespective of whether the child goes to day care or a parent chooses to stay at home and raise children. We proposed changing the child care expense deduction to a credit and extending it to every family in the country who has children 12 years of age and under. That will put more money in the pockets of all Canadians and not discriminate against those people who choose to stay at home with their children. I cannot believe the government allows that to continue when Canadians have spoken out so clearly in favour of the plan we propose.
Another change in Bill C-92, which I noticed the parliamentary secretary did not focus on, was government was requiring RRSPs
to mature at age 69 rather than at age 71. The Canada pension plan is under tremendous pressure today. People have admitted in the Liberal caucus they do not have confidence the Canada pension plan will be there to serve them well. This is what the member from Winnipeg was talking about the other day.
Why in the world are we saying that from here on in people will only be able to contribute to their RRSP until age 69? The two years between 69 and 71 are precious years for compounding. That is when they have the most money in their RRSPs. If there is another two years to contribute and to allow compounding to happen it would mean a lot more income. Unfortunately the government seems to take the approach that people should be penalized for trying to provide for their own retirement.
I fail to understand why we should be allowing the bill to be pushed through so quickly when it is an important issue. Canadians obviously feel very concerned about the viability of the Canada pension plan, especially considering the sorry record of previous federal governments and this one too in ensuring that the Canada pension plan has the necessary funding to provide for all Canadians.
I will touch for a moment on the issue of foreign reporting rules. I will allow my hon. friend from Calgary Centre to speak on this issue in a bit more detail. With respect to foreign reporting rules the government is proposing that people with offshore assets of over $100,000 must declare them and fill out the paperwork. I do not deny that there are some people who abuse the reporting of income from assets held offshore. Undoubtedly that happens. It happens in Canada as well. That is why we have auditors who go around checking these things. To all of a sudden make the assumption that all people are cheating and we have to record all their assets is absolutely ridiculous. If we apply that principle we should be doing it in Canada as well.
The government should be focusing its resources on doing more audits, if it is suspicious about people not reporting income, instead of creating one more massive bureaucracy. There will be truckloads of forms that will have to be filled out. It will ultimately cause some people to leave the country because they will not want to face that kind of scrutiny from big brother.
My time is up, but I invite my colleagues in the Reform Party to have another go at this ridiculous bill.