Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this debate.
My remarks by coincidence are going to dovetail to a certain extent the remarks of the member for Mississauga West. The member was commenting that one of the provisions in the budget is the mandatory reporting of construction contracts which would help solve some of the problems of the multibillion dollar underground economy.
The member for Mississauga West was saying that this change in the budget came as a result of lobbying by members of the construction industry, the unions and so forth. I do not doubt that these groups lobbied, but I happen to know that a colleague of the member for Mississauga West, the member for Mississauga South, was a very strong champion throughout the previous Parliament in addressing the issue of the underground economy. Indeed he moved a private member's motion that addressed among other things the possibility of bringing transparency to the reporting of construction contracts as a means of solving the problem of GST evasion.
This is one of the things I like about the budget. We on all sides of the House should admire this budget as it is very much the MPs' budget. As we look through it we find many instances where the finance minister has heard MPs and made the appropriate changes.
I am thinking for example of the restoration of funding to the Medical Research Council. There was an enormous movement inside the Liberal caucus asking for this funding to be restored. I do not doubt that members on the opposite side also campaigned to restore this funding.
Similarly there was a concern on all sides of the House about the problem of student debt. This budget has provisions which will help alleviate the problem to some extent for students who have found themselves burdened with enormous debts at the conclusion of their studies.
I too had input into the budget and had hoped that the finance minister was listening to me. I must say that after reading the budget I was disappointed to a certain degree because I have long been a champion of cutting back on the GST. Reducing the GST by even one percentage point in my view would be a very positive saving for Canadians, particularly because of the underground economy. In the previous Parliament I was very concerned about the amount of money that was being lost to government coffers and to the economy at large because of unreported work and the resulting unpaid taxes.
I was disappointed for a short while in what I found in the budget, but then I encountered that portion of the budget which dealt with the elimination of the 3% surtax for all those Canadians earning incomes of less than $50,000. The more I looked at this provision, the more I realized the government had come up, if I may say so, with its own novel answer to some of my own concerns. I do not remember at any time before the budget was actually brought down a debate at least in my own caucus about getting rid of the 3% surtax.
When we examine this initiative we can see that there is some genuine wisdom on the part of the government. By limiting the elimination of the tax to 13 million Canadians whose income is less than $50,000, what we are in effect doing is putting more money in the pockets of not only less better off Canadians but also younger Canadians.
The reality is that those who earn more than $50,000 are likely to be the more affluent Canadians and more likely older Canadians who have established households. They have boxed their worldly wealth and are probably enjoying retirement and perhaps leaving the country to take holidays down south. Younger Canadians on the other hand, those earning less than $50,000 are the ones who are going to be buying consumer goods. They are going to be buying automobiles, refrigerators and new homes. They are going to be stimulating construction.
When we think of the elimination of the surtax in this context, that it actually puts money back into the pockets of consumers, what we see is a very efficient way of not only stimulating the economy but getting maximum value for the tax cut dollar which has been put in place.
When these young people buy things, it creates jobs. It creates employment. It creates salaries for people who will in turn pay taxes. The tax cut which is involved in eliminating the 3% surtax has enormous repercussions throughout the economy.
Particularly after the remarks of the member for Mississauga West, I realize that the government in its wisdom has found a better solution than I had thought of with respect to the underground economy. It is stimulating younger Canadians to purchase by eliminating the surtax instead of simply taking a percentage point off the GST. That would have been an across the board tax cut. It would not have been half as effective as eliminating the 3% surtax.
It is very important not only to praise the government and to look at what was done in this budget, but also to look ahead. We have to tell the finance minister at this early stage what we would like to see in the next budget.
I regret that sometimes the opposition members focus only on criticizing what is already on the table and what is already very good. They should be looking at this debate as an opportunity to make suggestions to the finance minister on what we can do next year. He listens.
In fact I will give an offhand compliment to the Reform Party. The Reform Party embarked in 1993 on a deficit reduction platform and continued the deficit reduction campaign. If the NDP had been the official opposition, there is no doubt in my mind that the finance minister would have perhaps within his own caucus had more of a struggle with the very good and tough medicine he came up with. Even the Reform Party shares in the success of the finance minister's budget, and so it should be.
Let us look ahead. I am very interested in finding novel ways in which to make the economy run more efficiently. One of those ways is for the government to address those sectors of the economy which have been overlooked for decades. One of those sectors is the not for profit sector.
Some people would be amazed to realize that the Canada Business Corporations Act has fairly stringent reporting requirements for profit companies, yet it requires virtually nothing of not for profit companies. For example, not for profit companies are not required to prepare financial reports on an annual basis, as are for profit companies. There are no standards set for not for profit companies to prepare financial reports for their own members. There are problems.
Some of the not for profit companies are very large. Many charities are not for profit companies. Large entities such as the Canadian Automobile Association are not for profit companies. These companies take in millions of dollars a year, yet the government requires no financial reporting to government of their activities. There are no mandatory standards on how these not for profit companies should report to their memberships.
It is amazing to realize that the Canada Business Corporations Act does not even require not for profit companies to use a qualified accountant or auditor to prepare financial statements for their members. Literally anyone can do them. There is a lack of transparency. I could go on.
Even Revenue Canada has no way of adequately tracking the financial activities of not for profit companies. Such reports as are required of these companies to Revenue Canada are not public documents.
I would like to see the federal government take careful aim in the next budget at the not for profit sector and rewrite the Canada Business Corporations Act. It should require of the not for profit sector the same standards of financial transparency as are required of the for profit sector. Since the not for profit sector deals with an area of the economy in the billions of dollars, I think it would be a very positive measure for the next budget.