Madam Speaker, I find the latter part of the member's question irrelevant.
I would like to talk about the Canadian Alliance's tax reduction proposals. Last week I had the opportunity, along with other economists, to speak with the Leader of the Canadian Alliance in Montreal. I can tell the House that as far as progressivity goes, the tax system proposed by the Canadian Alliance is a bust. It does not make the grade.
No one found the Canadian Alliance proposal credible. It increased disparity among the various income levels and did little to solve the real problems of taxation.
We on the other hand, have been working hard since 1993 to observe and analyse this taxation system and have reached the conclusion that the important thing is not the rates of taxation but deductions, tax credits. We analysed all that, as well as the taxation structure. I would remind the Canadian Alliance member that the discrepancy in tax cuts is worse with the Canadian Alliance proposal than with any other proposal.
For instance, we looked at a family with one dependant earning $250,000. The tax cut would be 14 times greater than that for a middle income family. It would be 11 times greater for the Liberals. They are still leaning to the right, but the Canadian Alliance proposal is far from being a solution to the problem and being fiscally fair. On the contrary. Relatively speaking, tax cuts for top income earners are far higher than for middle income earners.
By the way, Quebecers are paying $35 million in taxes to the federal government. This is a huge amount of money. They are therefore entitled to have a say in how this money is spent, particularly in light of the government's patronage, cronyism, and squandering which the member mentioned.