Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting afternoon. One would wonder sometimes on which side of the fence one should really sit. When I hear some of the hon. colleagues getting up and accusing the Reform for all the problems that we have in this country, I wonder whether I ran for the wrong party. Then after I listen to that side, and those comments that well it is really the Conservatives that were ahead of the Liberals and they are to blame for all these bad policies.
One day somebody said to me “You know, governments have blamed everybody for the problems, even God”. Then the gentleman pointed out that it was all due to Christopher Columbus. He said that Christopher Columbus was the first Liberal to come to North America. I asked him how he knew that Christopher Columbus was the first Liberal and he said that when Christopher Columbus left Spain for the new world he did not know where he was going and when he arrived in North America he did not know where he was and he did it all on borrowed money. Does that not sound about right for our country?
Maybe if we keep on looking for excuses we will eventually find somebody who will take the blame. However, it is going to be a long time before that man arrives and does so.
I was astounded today to hear the government side say how good things are here in Canada. It is refunding all these tax credits. I was beginning to wonder where these credits came from. As a farmer, before I go to the hen house to gather eggs I have to put some work into getting the chickens to eat the grain and produce the eggs. There had to be a source where the eggs came from.
I am wondering where the Liberal government got all these funds for refunds, tax credits and benefits as it claims to be doing under Bill C-28. It seems to me that it had to come from some borrowed money that it had in the past. When I look at the ledger I think there is $600 billion of debt somewhere that future generations owe. It also seems to me that there is a Canada pension plan that has about a $560 billion unfunded liability. That makes a trillion dollars plus of money that has come into source somehow and has been distributed. We are now redistributing and redistributing and things just do not add up.
When I heard the prime minister in question period say that his government would pay back a billion dollars of debt or liability, I quickly figured that out and found that on $600 billion and $560 billion it would take about 1,100 years which will be the next millennium. There is not much chance for me or my children or my grandchildren to have any of those benefits.
What these people in government do not realize—and it does not matter whether it is Liberal, Conservative or NDP as we have had all three in provincial and federal governments—is that when cuts are made in one place, it affects everybody right down the line.
During the election in the fall of 1993 we heard that Reform was the party that would slash, burn and destroy everything while every day of that campaign we said that education and health care would not be cut. We now know that the Liberals had a different agenda. They were really the ones who cut, burned and slashed as far as education and health care are concerned. If I am right, about 40% of the funding has been cut back. Now they are slowly starting to give a little bit of that back in order to get the whole system back on track.
Farmers probably felt it more than anybody else. Not only did we pay income tax on the farm, we also had to pay property taxes. There were a lot of years where farmers had poor crops or prices were poor and there was no taxable income. However, because governments cut back on transfer payments for education and health, the municipal governments still had to raise those funds which came back on the property taxes. In order to make up for those cutbacks and taxes, I would have to borrow from the banks or the credit unions or privately the funds needed to pay my property taxes or I would not be able to stay in production.
This is something that our governments do not seem to realize. We have to create wealth before we can tax. We do not tax and then create wealth. It does not work. It does not work in the production of grain. It does not work in the production of livestock. It does not work in the production of machinery or manufacturing of any sort. We have to have inputs. We have to create wealth before we can tax that.
What we have been doing is we have been borrowing money to more or less give tax credits that should not have been given because there was no wealth to counter balance that.
How long will it take governments to realize that this is the way the system works. Whether we call it an NDP government, Liberal or Conservative, the mathematics are there and they function only in one direction. We can say one and one is three but it does not matter how often we say it, we will only have two.
That is exactly the way it works in farming. I could say to those chickens, “I pay 25% more tax and now you have to lay 25% more eggs”. It does not work that way. I have to either get more chickens or I have to somehow manage them better so they can produce more. That is what governments fail to realize. I do not know when they will finally learn and change the system.
In the 1988 election when the GST was brought in we heard that it was the vehicle that would finally get hold of the debt, that the GST would be a fair tax. They called it the goods and services tax so that if one had wealth to buy the goods and services one could help to pay down the debt. We have never seen a figure or an account where any of that debt has been paid back by the GST. We can say that was the Conservatives and we have it in black and white.
Then in the last election the Liberals all of sudden realized that it was a bad tax and it could buy votes if they did away with it. They came out strong and heavy saying “We will kill the GST. We will eliminate it”, or something else. I forget what it all was but we still have it. When I go home I have to fill out the GST forms for a three month period. They are always there waiting for me no matter whether I have anything to pay or not. But it is still in the system.
This is the sad part. Once we have a tax in the system, to get rid of that sucker is practically impossible no matter what government takes over. It will have to be a government that does not care about buying votes. That is the only way I can look at it. By buying votes they do not get rid of taxes. They make promises that do not have to be kept. That is the idea of politics.
I was interested in the comment made by my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill about the difference between American politics and Canadian politics. It makes sense that is probably what is happening. When we look at the U.S. tax system it is about 30% less than ours. It is not perfect but at least it is less. Its production is more efficient. When we look at the value of the American dollar today and the value of our dollar, we almost need two of those little suckers that we call Canadian loonies compared to the American buck. Why is it?
In 1976 I took my family on a little trip across the midwest. I got $1.10 for that Canadian loonie. That is how we were running our country at that time. Our farmers and businessmen were producing well, but we have thrown so many taxes on these people that we have finally bled them to death and we are all suffering for it.
I hope that changes some day because, Madam Speaker, both you and I will be better off.