Mr. Speaker, I thank you for rescuing the member opposite who, near as I can tell, did not take a breath for almost 10 minutes. It was an impressive sight. It is like the old saying when a preacher dropped his notes and someone said when you are unsure of what you are saying, just speak louder and maybe someone will believe it. I think the hon. member opposite was probably a case in point. Lots of volume, lots of rhetoric, no facts and I am not sure he is even convinced of his position.
On the budget implementation act it is a shame we cannot question one another during this period. It would be so much fun to debate with a member who relies so much on rhetoric and so little on facts.
For example, why has the bill taken so long to come to the House of Commons? And why now is there time allocation? Every single bill that is brought into the House is brought in by the government as it sees fit. If it does not want to bring the bill in until June, then it will run shy of time before the summer holidays. It has had three months in which to run the bill, every day since the budget announcement if it had wanted to.
This bill and the budget have been botched in several ways right from the word go. On the grouping we are talking about on the millennium fund the minister appointed the person in charge of the millennium fund before the legislation was passed in the House of Commons.
Imagine something this big. As the member opposite has said, this thing is practically as big as sliced bread. It is almost as miraculous as getting the milk inside the Caramilk bar. It is so huge it is practically a memorial fund for the Prime Minister in years to come. It is such a big thing you would think the legislation would come before the House to be debated. Once it was debated the minister would move ahead and enact the legislation as it was passed. But no, the Minister of Finance chose to appoint the person in charge of the millennium fund before parliament had a look at it.
Reform raised that in the House. We have this funny little quirk on this side of the House. We think that perhaps democracy in parliament should have a say in things, not just ministerial departments. The member set an alarming trend on behalf of the government and an alarming tendency to ignore parliament to legislatively put the cart before the horse. That was the first mistake on this.
The second mistake is in the budget itself in its entirety. The focus of the budget was that the government could probably continue to tax Canadians at this rate. Canadians are long suffering and fairly patient. They are not prone to dementia. Perhaps the government could continue to tax Canadians at a rate that would make most sane people cringe and business people cry and they will just put up with it.
That is exactly what happened. The budget continued the time honoured tradition of Liberal parliamentarians that the only good taxpayer is a well taxed taxpayer. With this bill we continue to have the highest personal income taxes in the G-7.
Today during question period there was a little bit of a kerfuffle and a point of order to straighten out the facts by the Deputy Prime Minister who was trying to decide whether Italy was the fifth biggest economy in the world and Canada was seventh, or was it the other way around. What he did not get into regardless of which way it was, and of course Canada is the seventh, is that we have the distinction of being number one when it comes to personal tax levels in the G-7. We get taxed higher than anybody else, including Italy and the Americans. That side of the House just cannot seem to understand that it affects people's business decisions.
I just heard talk a minute ago about Ireland and some other bright spots in the world for investment. Business people look at the education levels. They look at the political stability. They look at lots of things. One of the factors they also look at is the tax rate in the economy they are going to build their business in.
You only have to come out to British Columbia. Even within a small jurisdiction like Canada we can see with a high tax rate like that in British Columbia, which is a provincial problem, that the people in British Columbia are voting with their feet and are moving to Alberta to start up new businesses there. I can tell a litany of sad business stories of people from my riding, including people in the farming community who have given up on the high taxes in British Columbia and have moved to Alberta where there are the lowest taxes overall in Canada. There is no PST and Alberta has the lowest income taxes.
Taxes were botched right from the start. The attitude was that there was no tax relief needed for Canadians because after all, they can take it. They have not revolted. There is no rioting in the streets, so let them get by on what they are getting by on and we will just continue to spend the money.
It has long been my belief and the belief of the Reform Party that what taxation means at the federal level is the government takes our money, deducts 50% for handling and then gives it back to us in services we never asked for and it generally goes to the people who did not deserve it or want it to begin with. But the government makes sure that everyone is taxed. It is almost biblical in nature in that all must go to be taxed. It has been going on for a long time. The Liberal government has perfected it. The Liberals never met a taxpayer they did not like. They make sure that taxpayers are well fleeced so that they feel as lucky as any other Canadian I guess because they are treated equally that way.
That is unfortunate because dollars left in the hands of people in the community, in the hands of homemakers, in the hands of business people and students now and in the future are dollars that are more likely to be well spent than when the government gets its sticky little fingers on it.
In a previous speech about the tax system in Canada I mentioned the long chain of books that the tax collector, the hon. Minister of Finance has lying out behind him, the long catalogue of thousands of pages of tax laws, income tax increments and the broken promises of Christmas past, present and future. It kind of streams out behind him like a dead weight on the economy and forever must be pulled around like a chain while saying “Woe is me and woe is you because this thing is going to drag us down”.
Imagine if some of the tax burden was relieved from people. Imagine if some of that weight was taken off their shoulders. Imagine as we discuss this millennium fund if students had the prospect that as they earned money they would be able to keep more of it.
Canadians do not have to make a lot of money to start paying a lot of taxes in this country. I met with someone on Sunday who goes to the same church as I do. This fellow is in his mid-fifties, has been on and off social assistance and has held down a steady job for the last couple of years. He is working at a machine shop doing clean up and basic chores around the place. He makes $17,000 a year which is his total income. He said “What is it about our tax system that I have to send $3,000 a year to Ottawa? What gives in a system that taxes me, a $17,000 a year guy, and asks me to send money to Ottawa so they can take it, deduct 50% for handling and give it out to other people who get the services and are just a selected few?” I did not have an answer for him.
We could point out the following. On the millennium fund, who does not want to see our children educated? My goodness sake, I have four of them at college age. I would love to see them all educated with somebody else's tax dollars.
Why is it this millennium fund is going to affect 7 out of 100 students? And this is going to turn the world on its ear. A student who happens to be one of the seven blessed, a student who happens to be chosen will be a happy camper. But for the other 93 students, what are their prospects? Their prospects are to continue to pay GST, continue to pay income tax, continue to pay road taxes, tariffs, fees, customs duties, hidden user fees. Those students will continue to pay all of that and the government will take their money and give it to the 7 out of the 100 who will receive a benefit. The other 93 will pay and the 7 will receive a benefit.
I do not think that is the way it should be. There would be a lot more students with a lot more smiles on their faces, 93 at least, saying “Thank you, Mr. Minister, for reducing my taxes. Thank you for reducing my debt load. Thank you for giving me some prospect for hope for the future”.
I think that is the way we could get general support for any kind of millennium fund or scholarship fund because that would benefit all Canadians equally.