Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in debate. As my colleague from Cypress Hills—Grasslands stated, we in Saskatchewan have taken a terrible beating in health transfer costs because of the government opposite.
If I were to talk about individual cases which have come across my desk, I would be speaking at midnight about the horror cases in my province. People would like to blame that totally on the provincial government. When a any government issues a figure of $11 billion it sounds good, but it forgets to tell us to divide it by five.
On the way into work the other morning a radio host had three people on his show representing the three parties in Ontario in the upcoming election. I could not believe what one individual said, that we just could not stand any more tax cuts. If there is anything the country needs right now, it is individual tax cuts. A T-shirt can be seen on almost any street in any Canadian city which says “Tax me, I am a Canadian”. I have three brothers who went state side and stayed there to develop their professions for obvious reasons. They could not stand the Canadian tax regime.
It used to be in April of any year most senior citizens on my block would come to me with their tax forms. They would ask me to fill them out. It was a very simple form and I gladly did it. Now it is no longer a simple form. It has become a very complicated form. Only a government can produce a complicated form for a very simple process of collecting income tax from an 85 year old lady.
Let us talk about simple forms. Saskatchewan farmers used to get a form from the government by mail. I cannot ever remember a form coming from the government on Internet. They have to apply for it or have to go to the RM office for it. It constitutes about 40 pages even though the form itself may only be seven or nine pages. The farmer looks at it and says “It is like my income tax. I cannot fill out this form”.
Members opposite tell me that it is a very simple form. Of the hundreds of people who phoned in, I only know of three who actually tried to fill it out themselves.
We continue to completely ignore the wishes of the people. One Norwegian chap phoned me and said that he thought the government should get a very simple form with only three lines on it. The first line would be “How much did you make?” The second line would be “What were the expenses?” The third line would be “Kindly remit the rest”. That is about the way it is.
I have to congratulate those who figured out the AIDA form. They did a masterful job. It would take real brains to figure out how to force a person farming to put all of this down on a form, only to find out how much money they made and there would not be any help coming. That is the kind of form it is. It is a Rubik's cube.
Canadians have a right to know about our budget. When I was asked on television what I would say about the budget if I were the finance minister, I said that I would say this to all of the employees and workers in Canada: “Thank you very much. We just robbed you of $26 billion bucks. Thank you very much, workers and business people, because that is what we took away from you in extra employment insurance premiums”.
Another thank you should be mentioned. We ought to thank those who contribute to the pension fund because the government is dipping into that fund and will take out $30 billion.
The “tax me, I'm a Canadian” theory goes beyond just income tax. I must mention something that really bothers me. There is excessive income tax, but the government is also finding the ways and means in different departments to take more funds.
Where I live partly borders on the state of Montana and partly on the state of North Dakota. There are nine border crossing points and many of my people live closer to a hospital south of the 49th parallel than they do to a hospital in the province. Members will know that when their wife is expecting they will take the shortest route in the case of an emergency.
That is what happened to a family that lived almost 70 miles closer to a hospital in Montana than they did to a hospital in their province. This couple has paid their income taxes and has watched the form grow and grow. They have watched their taxes, municipal taxes and school taxes, grow until they are at the point that they get the AIDA form and they do not even know if they can fill the thing out. On three occasions Brian and Louise did not have much choice. Away they went. After less than 30 miles they were in a modern hospital. Three of their four children were born stateside, just a few miles across the border.
They are Canadian people. Both mom and dad were born here in Canada. Both paid large income taxes. Both paid huge agriculture taxes. Both paid huge road taxes, and they do not have any roads. Their children received their birth certificates from the states. The oldest boy is now 14. Guess what? He has to get a SIN number to take his driver's training. Guess what? It is going to cost Brian and Louise $75 a kid, or $225, for them to get their SIN numbers. Talk about a government that does not miss a beat. Congratulations. If it can get its hands in the pockets of a Canadian citizen, it certainly knows how to do it. These people and many people who cross the border in an emergency situation in my constituency use the hospitals in the United States. It is not out of preference, it is because of an emergency. They do not ask the provincial government or the federal government to pay their costs, they just do it. But when these three individuals want to get their social insurance number it will cost them $75 apiece.
Who do they contact? They contact their member of parliament. What will their member of parliament do? Just what I said I would do; not only will I speak in the House about this, but I will write the particular authorities to complain bitterly.
We need to humanize this whole idea of extracting money. We simply make fools out of ourselves by doing this. These three little kids, born to Canadian parents, have lived here, have been raised here and went to school here, but the government says “Give us a little more”, and they are protesting.
Finally, I want to draw the attention of the House to another factor. I mentioned this case before. There was a single working mother who had two children. The government finally caught up with her husband and extracted a lot of money from him for support payments. He was made to pay three years of support payments, which amounted to about $11,000. What did the government do? It said “Give us $5,500 all at once”. My argument is that members opposite are wrong. It should have been divided by three and it should have been at that rate, but so far this valiant young mother has not heard from Revenue Canada.
I think that Canadians deserve a little more attention. Perhaps the government could humanize its approach to Canadians. We are human beings. Brian and Louise do not have $225. They do not even know if they will be able to plant a crop because of this.
Not one cent of AIDA money, to my knowledge, has been dropped into the province of Saskatchewan. I know the minister says that the farmers in Prince Edward Island have it and the farmers here have it. They all had their forms before ours were printed. I would bet that our income tax forms arrived at the same time. I know that mine did.
My constituents are like other constituents. The young people move away. There are more than 200 students going to university in Minot. Why? Because they can get bursaries and grants and it is cheaper. Why do we do this? Why do we continue to tax ourselves to a standstill?
I most certainly will not be supporting Bill C-72. I cannot do it. My conscience would not let me do it even if I were sitting on the other side of the House, but I expect that all of those members will support it.