Madam Speaker, it is sad to see the opposition taxing the patience of members of the House by trying to delay legislation that would reduce the taxes of Canadians, but then logic and consistency have really never been the strong suit, or should I say the long suit, of the party once known as reform.
The motion proposes that:
“this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-25...since the principle of the Bill does not provide for a Single Rate Tax Plan as proposed in Solution 17.”
If I may offer some friendly advice to the hon. member and his colleagues, if they ever want to build a truly national constituency, it is time they got out of the single rate rut. The flat tax proposal of the Canadian Alliance fails miserably in the two most important tests: the test of equity and the test of simplicity. I hope I can show that in my remarks which follow.
Instead of trying to sell a phoney silver bullet solution, they should be helping the government enact its program of tax relief, including the $58 billion in tax savings proposed in the February budget. They are real tax savings for all Canadians and fair tax savings that provide the greatest benefit for families in the greatest need rather than reward the rich.
Our government knows that Canadians are tired of the tax burden. That is why, with the deficit eliminated for good, we have taken clear, concrete action to get taxes down. We have made it clear that the actions in budget 2000—including those contained in this bill—are just a minimum. As revenues improve, we will do more.
But a single tax rate is not on that agenda because it is not on anybody's agenda. They should put effective, equitable public policy ahead of desperate partisan politics. This point was emphasized in a column last week in the Ottawa Citizen . In referring to the hon. member for Medicine Hat, it states that he:
—points out that (Premier) Harris `has been agnostic' on the (single rate) tax. Yet, in last week's budget, the Ontario Premier missed the opportunity to move in the direction of a single-rate tax. And there are few other examples for the Alliance to point to: Only Latvia and Hong Kong have flat taxes, and five American states have single-rate taxes.
More impressive is the list of those (from Thatcher's Britain, to Reagan Republicans, to an early Reform Party task force) that have studied the flat tax and rejected it.
The reason that so many jurisdictions have rejected the opposition's solution 17 approach, just as a decade's worth of U.S. primaries rejected the flat tax mania of millionaire presidential wannabe Steve Forbes, is that it is both wrong-headed and wrong-hearted.
The fact is that solution 17 with its 17% single rate would provide much larger tax reductions for high income individuals compared with middle and low income individuals. This would violate the widely held view in our democratic system that a key objective in providing tax relief should be to deliver it first to those who need it most: middle and low income individuals and those with families.
Thinking caring Canadians understand that it is important to ensure that the tax system recognizes the ability of individuals to pay by taxing at a lower rate middle and low income families. But reform's solution 17 heads in the opposite direction. It would significantly reduce the progressivity and fairness of the tax system.