Mr. Speaker, my colleague has touched upon the very important point about the massive increase in government spending. If the government put more money into health care, that is one area which would get my support. However, where is the $86 billion increase in spending going?
As we have seen, the biggest beneficiaries are programs such as grants and contributions. Some of the grants are absolutely mind-boggling. They are almost insulting to repeat. It is important that we remind Canadians how the money is being spent.
Under Canadian heritage, grants have gone out for hanging dead rabbits in trees, for setting up a call centre for prostitution or phone sex or something like that as an art exhibit in Paris. They are absolutely horrific. I cannot believe the government would allow one thin dime of taxpayers' money to go to those. Not only did it send it, it supported it. It defends those types of programs.
The member made a very important point. There was an $86 billion spending increase. It is time to put money back into the pockets of Canadians for them to spend. It would help stimulate the economy and they would spend the money a lot better.
There are some things we need to spend money on such as health care. We need to debate how to deliver health care in this country. Our national health care needs to become stronger. Whether Canadians get sick in St. John's or they have a heart attack in Winnipeg or Vancouver, they want to know that they will be treated without having to wait. Unfortunately that is not where the money is going.
I was asked what could help turn the situation around and bring back some credibility and respect. Our solution 17 would see a single tax rate of 17%. It would increase the basic exemption for people to $10,000. It would not discriminate against people whether they were working or not and both people in the household could get that. That would take one million Canadians off the tax roll. People with lower incomes would be the biggest beneficiaries. A family of four would have to earn in the neighbourhood of $26,000 before paying one dime in tax. There are people in the country right now who are below the poverty line and who pay taxes. That is wrong.
Where does the money go? It goes to political patronage and to the cronies of the people over there. That is so frustrating to me. There is example after example. It goes out one door and comes in another door called the Liberal Party of Canada. There are lots of examples. It is corrupt and it is wrong. It is time we changed that and brought back respect to this institution. I am not going to quit until we do.