The member says “Oh, nonsense”. How else then, if we are not being treated as a rubber stamp, does the member explain the fact that we have had a one day time allocation on this and debate will be chopped off?
The management of this House works on the basis that the House leader and the government know they can whip their sheep into line. The sheep just stand and bleat on cue and the legislation gets through. They know that is what is going to happen.
I was very appreciative of the member from Kamloops, a long time member of this House, an NDP member I should point out. He stood and said that he believed in the principle of the bill. He found a tremendous number of difficulties with the legislation but he believed in the principle of equalization to the point that he would recommend to his colleagues that on second reading, which is where we are right now, the NDP vote in favour of the bill passing to committee whereupon they could take care of the very serious problems that are in the legislation.
I mentioned that I have a very high regard for the member, but clearly he has a lot more faith in the parliamentary process currently in effect as stipulated by the Prime Minister and this government than I do. In fact, if the government is going to be treating the House of Commons as a rubber stamp in this way, how can we have any confidence?
Let us take a look at some of the realities that have already been mentioned by a few of my colleagues. I do not believe that anybody has mentioned the interprovincial transfer of wealth for example in addition to the equalization program. I will state this again very clearly and very slowly so that the members can understand my English. I will go one word at a time and tell them that the Reform Party is in favour of the concept of equalization. We do see it as being one of the distinctives of being Canadians.
I hope all members caught that because that is a statement of fact as to where the Reform Party is coming from.
However, to equate our rejection of Bill C-65 in principle, to equate our rejection of the tinkering around the edges that Bill C-65 constitutes, to our somehow not being in favour of equalization is something that only a Liberal mind could create I am sure.
Let us touch back on employment insurance. On employment insurance in Canada in the so-called have provinces, people contributing to that, the individual workers or the corporations, for every $1 that they contribute to that they get pennies back out. That is a statement of fact.
Newfoundlanders, on the other hand, under that program as it is presently constituted, for every $1 that they contribute get more than $3 back and so it is ranging down from Newfoundland, which is the most extreme, on down. The point being that equalization is not the only interprovincial transfer of wealth.
The major problem with this formula is that it does not take into account all the examples that my colleagues in the Reform Party have pointed out where there has been and continues to be a transfer of wealth from the so-called have provinces to the so-called have not provinces.
It has been pointed, and it is worthy to remind members, that we have a situation, for example, in my constituency where the average per capita income is probably significantly less than the average per capita income of say Vancouver or Victoria just because of the type of constituency with a rural based economy, where we have families of four or more earning $20,000 or $30,000 a year. Those families are having money transferred to families in Newfoundland and in some of the maritime provinces that are earning over $100,000 a year. This is the reality of the formula as it is presently constructed.
I know this may be the third or fourth time that I have said this but it seems to be going over the heads of my friends on the Liberal side. The Reform Party believes in the concept of equalization because it is distinctive of Canadians that we do look after each other. This is one of the things that we embrace as a nation and certainly one of the things we embrace as a party. However, Bill C-65 simply tinkers around the edges, creates more confusion, creates more problems and, in effect, creates inequality when it is called a bill on equalization.