Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to discuss the equalization bill. I join my colleagues on this side of the House in condemning the irresponsible panic the government uses to introduce legislation in this place. To compound that, about an hour ago we had the 46th time that time allocation or closure has been moved since the Liberals took power in 1993.
There is a list of comments that could be made by the members from that side in the way they handled time allocation when it was used against them in a couple of government situations before that. I will not get into that today.
This is not the first time this cabinet has waited until the last minute to bring in time sensitive financial bills with no consultation or material circulated so that all members of parliament and their constituents can get a good, hard look at what is being proposed.
In the case of Bill C-65 we have the even greater absurdity of having this dumped in our laps, so the government knew it would have to take a look at the equalization legislation formula every five years. We knew this was coming. It is nothing new.
The auditor general several times has reminded the government through his annual recommendations to reform the structure of equalization, but like so many other worthwhile things that he has had to say lately, it has been totally ignored.
The opposition and by extension all Canadians outside government circles were given three sitting days notice to consider $35 billion in spending that will extend well into the mandate of the next government. As the old saw goes, haste makes waste, and this government has made haste an art form.
Bill C-65 introduces some new variables into an equation that is already so complex that even its authors have trouble understanding it. How else can we explain the fact that three years out of five the formula for figuring out the amounts to be doled out has to resort to exceptions and special definitions.
The formula, in other words, cannot even describe what the government has in mind for all this money it hands out. I equate this equalization system with the so-called simplicity of the new gun registry which one member opposite compared to the simplicity of the tax code. It never seems to occur to this government that there is something wrong with a tax code that runs to 1,600 pages and still requires thousands of legal opinions every year.
It does not seem to bother this government that it has spent $200 million on a gun registry with more waste on the way as it struggles to make it work. No one knows exactly what is supposed to be accomplished by it.
Equalization as practised by this government suffers from the same disease. It is complex, unaccountable, ineffective and unworkable. On top of built-in special terms and evasions this government has had to write up special deals with two so-called have not provinces so that, we presume, they can be even more equal than the other have nots.
It has occurred to me that if Nova Scotia and Newfoundland get special discounts on their oil revenues maybe my home province of Saskatchewan can make a deal on casino revenues which are now to be considered part of the province's fiscal status. In future will we see three levels of consideration for lottery revenues like we are looking at for oil in those other two provinces? Will there be special calculations for lottery tickets versus roulette wheel contributions?
Saskatchewan plans to take a major hit on gaming revenues as, right or wrong, it has built up quite a nest egg over the last couple of years from that source. We cannot be sure that gambling even represents net revenue in the broadest sense. When we take out the social ramifications and the costs to families and so on, is there anything there that we really want to take a look at taxing?
When the federal government counts the gross amount donated to one arm bandits, lottery retailers, will it subtract the social cost of gambling addictions and the resulting family break-ups? Will it take into account the fact that gambling money may simply be money taken from some other spending? Will it take into account, as the member for Surrey Central mentioned on Monday, the example of Windsor, Ontario? There is a great glittering casino there surrounded by boarded-up restaurants and shops, and Windsor is at least on the boarder with Detroit, a large population base to draw from. One could argue that we are fleecing Americans for their loose change, but that is not a likely outlet for rural Saskatchewan.
I am not trying to argue that provinces should be able to collect billions from their own jurisdiction and pick up handouts from Ontario, Alberta and B.C. as well. Quite the contrary. The fact that ten provinces and soon to be three territories exist as autonomous jurisdictions means that all these governments have different ways to fulfil the ambitions and desires of their local populations.
The equalization plan this government is still tinkering with, in fact making even more complex, does not even want to recognize this. The equalization wants to arbitrarily level the playing field by chopping down all the trees and filling in the ditches. It forgets there are reasons why some people need those forests.
