Mr. Speaker, I found it very interesting to listen to some of the criticism by the Bloc of the bill. I have a few questions that I would like to ask in this regard.
It becomes abundantly clear, when one has been in the position I have been in for a number of years, that when funds are collected by the federal government the handling fee, so to speak, becomes very great. I know the Bloc is pushing for a lot of the money to be transferred back to the provinces and so on, but we are talking about municipalities.
Would the Bloc agree that it would be better not to have the money sent to the federal government? Would the Bloc agree that we should leave the money in the municipalities, leave it in the constituencies, and let the people decide the level of tax they want?
We in the Reform Party firmly believe, if we want effective government services, that the closer those services can be delivered to the people the better off they will be. I wonder if the member would agree with that. He talked about the federal surplus. What is wrong with reducing taxes? Why not leave the money in the pockets of the people?
Anyone who has studied this point has come to the conclusion that if we want to create real jobs we have to reduce the tax burden. The biggest tax burden is imposed by the federal government. That would do more to stimulate the economy in local constituencies than anything else.
Would the member agree that the money should be left with the people? We should let the people of Quebec, the people of the local municipalities, decide. A tremendous bureaucracy is developed in the federal government when it is allowed to tax at the level it has taxed, and there is a huge handling fee.
Property taxes in Saskatchewan are a huge problem because two-thirds of the component of property taxes go toward education. This puts an unfair burden on certain groups of people such as farmers who are trying to make a living from the land. Would the member not agree that if a certain level of government such as a provincial government handles education in a province it should be the one to equitably fund it?