Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the second member from the Canadian Alliance today. We can dress them up but we cannot take them anywhere.
What I basically heard from the first speaker today was that we on this side of the House are just a bunch of spenders and that the tax cuts we gave in the last budget were minuscule. The very same speaker then said that $2.5 billion more in health care was not enough and that they wanted more. Then I heard the second speaker stand and say that he wanted $8 billion more in the defence portfolio. Those members have no idea where any of this money will come from. They must think it is some kind of magic. We will give tax reductions and increase spending at the same time. It is just wonderful.
I heard them talk about the flat taxes. I believe it was eight years ago that the former Reform Party talked about flat taxes. Just about everybody, except the province of Alberta, which wants to experiment with this, has given up on the idea of flat taxes. Everybody knows that the great wonders that the members opposite want to come up with to modernize the system and reduce the administration of the taxation system are not feasible with flat taxes. We can do that in a progressive system as well.
The issue is that a flat tax, by and of itself, is simply shifting the tax burden from the lower middle income earners and the middle income earners to the higher income earners of this country. That is what the so-called CAs envision. By the way, I also object to their name. I happen to be a chartered accountant, as are some of my colleagues. These people are now calling themselves a professional designation by stealth. I suppose we all have to call them CAs as well but they certainly do not know much about economics.
Would the member explain how we are to keep ramping up all this money and at the same time reduce taxes and have a responsible approach to government?