Mr. Speaker, I will read the intended purpose of act and then tell the House its real purpose:
The purpose of this act is to increase the availability of financing small businesses which would not otherwise have access to financing.
That gets to the whole point of it. If its purpose is to increase the availability of financing to small businesses, should it be done by legislating it or by regulating it? Maybe some members across the way or other colleagues in the House think it works that way, but just because it is legislated or regulated does not make it so.
The problem for small businesses is not that they do not have the ability to acquire more debt. Their problem is that they do not have enough equity. The government continues to raise their taxes. It likes to talk about how small business is the backbone of job creation, but since it took office in 1993 there have been 40 tax increases. The government is breaking the backbone of business. The Liberals are taking baseball bats to the backbones of small businesses.
Let me talk about how many different baseball bats the Liberals have brought in. I will use the example of my home town of Calgary, Alberta. Alberta has about 1.62 million workers. Alberta pays into employment insurance to the tune of about $1.8 billion per year and only takes out $500 million. That leaves $1.3 billion in the finance minister's coffers.
If we divide those numbers it is about $750 per average working Albertan. That is money that is not in their wallets. That is money that is in the finance minister's mountain high overpayments in terms of the EI fund. That type of thing hurts small business. I do not think that legislating and regulating banks to try to give out more money is the way to do it. Why not do a favour for small business rather than try to regulate and legislate the banks? That is what small business wants.
If I were to knock on the doors of small businesses in my riding I can bet dollars to donuts they would not say that the number one thing they want from the government is more legislation and more regulation telling them how to run their shops. They would say they want lower taxes. That is what those Liberals across the way do not seem to understand. They do not hear that.
This government said it was going to cut the GST. The government said it was going to scrap, kill and abolish the GST. But no, this government has left that type of shackling on businesses in this country. This government said it would do something about it and it did not do it. It was a broken promise. The government does not like hearing about it, but it is the truth, and the truth hurts.
If the sting and the venom of my tongue hurts the Liberals' virgin ears, that is too bad. They need to hear the truth.
The GST was supposed to be scrapped, killed and abolished. The Prime Minister promised so. The Prime Minister is on tapes right across the land saying that he was going to do that if his government was elected. But this government did not deliver. This government fell short on that promise to small business people in this country.
This government brought in 40 tax increases and its members pride themselves on having balanced the budget. This government does not like talking about the $24 billion more that it brings in in taxes in this country. Taxes have gone up. The GST has stayed. The government has raised CPP premiums and other payroll taxes.
The Liberal government is milking small business people dry and it talks about legislating and regulating banks. Shame on this government. That is not the answer and this government knows it.
Why does this government not give taxpayers and small business people in this country a break, rather than regulating them? That is not the solution and this government knows it is not the solution. For those members across the way who own small businesses, they should know that is not the way to cure the ailments of small business in this country. Small business is not asking or begging for more regulation.
Let us talk about priorities. This government says it wants to increase the availability of financing to small business. What is this government doing about corporate welfare in this country? Is corporate welfare somehow less important?
The government spends $4 billion a year on corporate welfare. It gives money to its friends. I have certainly talked about that with ACOA and other programs that go on under this regime. It gives money to people who have given campaign donations. There seems to be an interesting if not spurious correlation there.
This Liberal government can find money for those things, but to lower taxes we would have to twist the finance minister's arm and break it at the wrist and the elbow.
This government does not talk about corporate welfare very much. This government does not talk about the funding it gives to special interest groups. Somehow that is more sacrosanct than cutting taxes for small businesses. I do not think so.
The government gives money to crown corporations. It believes that is more important than cutting taxes for small business.
Do members know that the CBC receives close to $1 billion a year? It has been cut down a little, but at one point it was $1.1 billion. Somehow that is more important than cutting taxes for small business.
I see that some members are turning their tails and running.
The government has never come clean on this, but there are some in this country who are questioning whether Canada Post is using the money it gets from taxpayers for regular mail to cross-subsidize its courier services, e-mail and other things that it does in direct competition with Purolator Courier and other courier associations and businesses in this country.
When we have the public sector competing with private sector businesses, driving them out of business, eating up their advertising, their revenue dollars and their clients, it is a shame. This government happens to think that those types of things are more important.
I would like to go through the 40 tax increases and the types of things this government has brought in. It does not want to cut taxes. This government wants to regulate and legislate instead of getting to the whole problem of equity.
This government wants to give businesses more debt. We can bet our bottom dollar on that. We are asking for a little more equity. When people pay taxes they are incurring debt. If they have a debt already and they are paying more, they have to take on more debt.
I bet this government would like to give them more rope to hang themselves by. I bet the finance minister gloats over the $24 billion more he has taken in since 1993. The finance minister and the rest of the Liberals love lining the government's pockets and building up hordes of money.
I am going to go through some of these tax increases that seem to be more important and more sacrosanct than cutting taxes for small business. Instead, the government is proposing legislation and regulations so that businesses have more rope to hang themselves by.
The government put a tax on life insurance premiums and extended it. What has that brought in? In the 1994-95 budgetary year it brought in $120 million. It then got worse. One would think $120 million in terms of tax on life insurance premiums and the extension was bad enough, but it went up to $200 million, $80 million more.
This government is all about taxing life insurance premiums. It is not about cutting taxes for small business.
What else is the government into? It is into income testing for age credits. One might ask how much money that has brought in. In fiscal year 1994-95 it brought in $20 million. In the year after that it brought in $170 million. By the time we got to 1996-97 it brought in $300 million. Taxes keep going up and up with this Liberal administration, but I do not hear about it cutting taxes, lessening regulations and legislation. That is the way it knows how to solve problems.
This government also went ahead and made changes to the tax treatment of securities. For every single one of these five years it has brought in $60 million more per year, for a total of $300 million.
I realize that my time is up. I could go on and on. The solution is not to legislate and regulate to provide capital to businesses, it is to cut their taxes.