Mr. Speaker, the hon. member totally, non-stop, throughout the speech of my colleague who spoke before me kept saying “Let's have the solution”. “Let's have the solution”.
Now I stand poised to try to give that to him, but his mouth is going so fast that he cannot get his ears into gear. That is probably why they cannot get these solutions.
There is only one justification for any government. That justification is to do for people those things that they cannot or will not do for themselves. That is the fundamental purpose of government.
If we go with that premise, then we start at the federal level and say that some things can best be done and need to be done at the federal level. There are also a lot of things that are currently being done at the federal level, sometimes exclusive of provincial government, but sometimes inclusive of provincial governments where there are overlaps. All governments need to reduce themselves to doing only those things which the people cannot or will not do for themselves. Then those items need to be brought back as close to the people they serve as possible, because after all we keep suggesting we live in a democracy. If we do live in a democracy, then we should also recognize that we as elected officials are not the rulers of people, we are the representatives of people. We are supposed to represent the will of those people.
How better to do that than make sure the services we provide them are provided at the closest level of representation possible so that people have the most input into that process. If the federal government would do that, reduce to doing about 20 things and make sure that it does them well and gets out of all the other things, it could reduce the size of federal government, transferring those responsibilities and duties to closer levels of government to the people. If it did that successfully then we could reach a point where we could return to the way this country used to be run where there was no federal taxation whatsoever. Taxation was at the provincial level.
That is the way this country started out. We had provincial taxation. The federal government of the day back during a world war said we need taxation to pay for the war effort. The government does not seem to realize the war is long over. Even with all that taxation revenue coming in and the war over, it has run up this incredible debt.
Governments are starting to recognize the folly of deficit finance. Governments at the provincial and federal levels are starting to recognize that. Let us keep it going. Let us get back to the point where we say that there are only certain things the federal government should be doing. Stop doing all the other things and give the responsibility back where it belongs to the provinces and possibly even closer.
If the government does that successfully then we can have taxation at the provincial level alone. Where then does the federal government get its money? It gets its money by billing the provinces a fee for services rendered. It bills them on the basis of the provincial GDP. There is the equalization, notwithstanding the truthful comments that my colleague from Okanagan—Shuswap made about what a disastrous job the current government in British Columbia is doing.
British Columbia is still potentially a very wealthy province. I suspect there will soon be a change of government in British Columbia. We can get ourselves back on our feet again. That means British Columbia, my province, will pay a little more for those services than some other provinces that do not have as high a GDP. As a B.C. taxpayer, I do not have a problem with that.
We are looking in the wrong direction in terms of these equalization payments of taking money away from everybody and divvying it up. Look at the taxation system. An individual making $8,000 or $9,000 a year pays income tax. They cannot live on the gross amount but they still pay income tax. The government says it recognizes that they cannot live on that. That is why we have different types of support type payments to help these people out. Then on what little money they have left the government charges them GST. Again it says that it recognizes that people with that low an income cannot afford to pay GST, so it created a GST rebate program.
Can people not see the folly of creating a bureaucracy that takes people's money away on one hand and then creating another bureaucracy to give them some of that money back, using most of it up in the collection and distribution process? It obviously makes much more sense to stop taking it in the first place if we know we will have to give it back. We can do that and solve the equalization problem, solve a lot of the taxation problems and solve a lot of the overlap problems by reducing federal government to only those things that need to be done that can best be done at the federal government.
Bill the provincial governments a fee for services rendered on a provincial GDP basis. That will be the equalization. We will have a lot more control in our province. In the province of Alberta, it would give a lot more control. Alberta is another very responsible province that seems to be running well.
Others can take a page from that. If they cannot run well in the province, the people have the closest access to do something about it. It seems when people come to Ottawa they forget they are here to represent people and take on a life of their own.
That is not official Reform policy but it is an idea that I have been talking about with people for a long time. I hope the few Liberals present will give that some serious thought as a possible alternative to maybe a kernel of a new idea. I know they will not change their entire line of thinking now on the basis of this but I hope it does plant a seed in the minds of some of those people and maybe in the minds of people who are watching this today to think there are alternatives.
We do not need to keep tinkering trying to make little tiny fixes on a system that clearly is not working. What we need is a new look at a new system. I believe if the Liberals honestly take a look at this and evaluate it properly they will find they have something they can better work with that is fairer for all Canadians.
I hope the Liberals are listening. They have certainly quieted down since I started talking. Let us hope that in addition to their mouths not working their ears have started.