Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand to give my point of view with respect to Bill C-24. It is important for everyone who is listening, both in and outside the House or perhaps someone who may be reading Hansard some time in the future, to know what is going on here.
Bill C-24 is actually a budget implementation act. I begin my speech by saying that a very strange thing happens in Canada when it comes to the implementation of budget measures. There is the day when the Minister of Finance stands and there is a bunch of hoopla. All the media come and set up their big tractor trailer units with their dishes. The cables that run into this place are twice as thick as usual. It is called budget day. On that day, the minister announces all the determinations that are going to appear in the new budget rules which, for all intents and purposes, means this is how we are going collect money from Canadians and this is how we are going to spend it for them. That is the big picture of the budget. Of course, everyone pays close attention to it and wonders how it will impact on them.
What I find difficult to understand and accept is that the budget is announced prior to any real input from Canadian people or from parliamentarians. I know that all the Liberals in the House would protest that if they were so inclined. They would say that we have had prebudget consultations, we have listened to the people and we are implementing the things that the people of Canada want. I think most of the members in the House presently would probably be silent.
I would however point out that this really is a very one-sided affair. The Minister of Finance in conjunction with the top people in the finance department actually write that budget speech and determine the budget provisions well in advance of the budget being made. When it is announced in the House of Commons instantly becomes de facto law. We can call that a democratic process if we want to but I seriously question that because of two things.
First, the one I have already mentioned, is that there is no meaningful input or debate in the House prior to the budget. We go through some machinations of doing that but we very seldom see the actual minister or his departmental officials. How it is transmitted to them I do not think is much beyond some political considerations. These decisions are made behind closed doors and then it becomes de facto law.
The second part, which shows that this is very one-sided and dictatorial, is that there is to my knowledge no record of a parliament ever reversing anything that the Minister of Finance has said on budget day. In other words, what he says is then law. When we come to vote on the budget, the government members are all whipped into voting for these measures. Whether they agree with them or not and whether they understand them or not, they just do it. We have new rules imposed on Canadians without any real input.
Traditionally the members on the opposition side will speak and vote against those parts of the budget that they find objectionable, and in our party, we will speak in favour of the things that we support. We are then asked to vote, usually on its entirety.
One of the dilemmas we face with the bill before us today is that with one vote we will have to either vote for some of the things we agree with, thereby giving our assent to those that we profoundly disagree with or, on the contrary, we will vote against Bill C-24 because of the objectionable parts of it. The political spin from our opposition on the other side will be that we voted against giving a tax break to people who have extra expenses because they are handicapped.
I have a great dilemma. I in fact would like to say yes. I am in favour of those provisions in the bill that provide for reduced taxation for those who have special costs because they are physically or mentally handicapped or whatever their needs. However, it is as if I had gone to a restaurant where the waiter brings me a beautiful steak and instead of having it surrounded with potatoes and vegetables, it is surrounded by gravel.
I now have a beautiful steak with gravel around it and I have to ask myself “Am I going to take it or not?” As good as the steak may appear and as hungry as I may be, I can look at the plate and say “That steak is so appealing. Yes, I would love to eat it but the gravel, the sand and the other garbage around it makes it unpalatable. I have to send it back to the kitchen and maybe the cook can try again”. That is probably what will happen with Bill C-24.
As I have said, there are some admirable and commendable things in this bill. I would like to be on record as being in favour of it but I do not think that will be an option because of the objectionable things.
About 1994, if I remember correctly, the third party, as we were called at that time, brought forward a motion on the budget. During that parliament, as in this one, the Liberals had a majority and could do pretty well what they wanted to do. The Reform Party at that time moved some amendments to the budget which were truly not substantive but very symbolic.
One of the motions we moved would have reduced the expenditures of several departments by a small amount. As I recall, our motion called for the expenditures to be reduced by $20,000. I hesitate to say that is a small amount because people in my riding and elsewhere in Canada are being taxed to death by the government and to them $20,000 is by no means a small amount. However, in comparison to the billions that the government taxes out of Canadians and spends, sometimes very foolishly, $20,000 is a very small proportion of the total budget.
We therefore moved a motion that one or two departments have their total expenditures reduced by $20,000 as a symbolic statement simply to demonstrate that parliament did have control over the budget. We thought that was an important first step. If that could have been established, we would have proceeded to the next step and taken some real control as parliamentarians over the budget process. We would have been able to tell the bureaucrats how much money they could spend instead of them telling us how much they were going to take from Canadian taxpayers and spend in government departments.
I believe that every Liberal member at that time voted against our motion. We gave the Liberals an opportunity to demonstrate that parliament had control over the budgetary process but they chose to vote against it. They said that they would not reduce departmental budgets even by $20,000 because they wanted to continue the dictatorship that comes from the Minister of Finance.
There is another reason that it is very difficult to hold the government accountable. I will illustrate this by taking one of the cases in the particular act that we are studying today. We have an issue in Bill C-24 where the government proposes to exempt from taxation part of the accommodation costs made by people who come into Canada as visitors. This simply exempts and adds to the exemption people who are coming in as tourists and who are using the campgrounds as accommodations. Up until now campgrounds were not included in this.
I want to read this clause in the bill because it illustrates to Canadian taxpayers, and to people who happen to be listening to this debate or who will be reading it later on, how difficult it is for us to keep the government's feet to the fire so to speak because of the convoluted language that is used even in such a simple matter. I refer to section 252 of the act which is being amended by clause 68 of Bill C-24. It states that section 252 of the act is replaced by the following:
“camping accommodation” means a campsite at a recreational trailer park or campground (other than a campsite included in the definition “short-term accommodation” in subsection 123(1) or included in that part of a tour package that is not the taxable portion of the tour package, as defined in subsection 163(3))—
That is how it starts. I will go back and read the first part again but I will miss the brackets this time. It reads:
“camping accommodation” means a campsite at a recreational trailer park or campground—
And then we have this parenthetical phrase:
—that is supplied by way of lease, licence or similar arrangement for the purpose of its occupancy by an individual as a place of residence or lodging, if the period throughout which the individual is given continuous occupancy of the campsite is less than one month. It includes water, electricity and waste disposal services, or the right to their use, if they are accessed by means of an outlet or hook-up at the campsite and are supplied with the campsite.
“tour package” has the meaning assigned by subsection 163(3), but does not include a tour package that includes a convention facility or related convention supplies.
That is how this thing starts but then it becomes convoluted. Perhaps I should not read all this but it now begins to define “non-resident”. I previously said that this is the part in Bill C-24 that proposes to exempt from taxation the taxes on camp fees that are charged to non-residents. It states:
a non-resident person is the recipient of a supply made by a registrant of short-term accommodation, camping accommodation or a tour package that includes short-term accommodation or camping accommodation,—
It further states:
a particular non-resident who is not registered under Subdivision d of Division V is the recipient of a supply of short-term accommodation, camping accommodation or a tour package that includes short-term accommodation or camping accommodation.
Mr. Speaker, do you know what I said? Do you understand what I just read? I hate to admit this publicly but I am not sure I know what this means. However, I will vote on it and so will all the Liberal members afterwards. Of course it is easy for them because they will just stand when their string is pulled. However, as a member of the opposition I have to somehow try to make sense of this and figure out whether this is a good thing or not.
I would like to urge people out there in the real world to get on the Internet and call up Bill C-24. They just have to go to the parliamentary site, www.parl.gc.ca, look for government business, look at the bills, pull up Bill C-24 and try to read it. I defy them to read it.
I know there are not many Liberals listening to me right now but maybe there is an accountant listening. Maybe that accountant could phone me back and say “I read that and I understood it perfectly”. I would like to meet that person. That is only one example. It goes on and on. I hesitate to punish our interpreters, whom I value so highly, by reading more of this. These are really strange things. It goes on and on for four or five pages.
There is another strange thing that happens. Different parts of the bill come into effect on different dates. Subparagraph 252.1(13) states that subsection (1) is deemed to have come into force on February 24, 1998, which is a little over two years ago. There are other parts of the bill which I scanned through while I was sitting here that have implementation dates all the way back to 1990. Even though this is a bill that primarily implements the provisions of the budget in the last year or two, or three, there are some sections which go back further than that. For example, the top of page 98 states:
(5) Subsection (2) is deemed to have come into force on November 26, 1997”.
(6) Subsection (3) is deemed to have come into force on April 1, 1997.
(7) Subsection (4) is deemed to have come into force on December 17, 1990.
That is over 10 years ago. We are implementing a budget provision that, when the bill is passed, will retroactively be deemed to have come into force on December 17, 1990. Most of us cannot even remember where we were on that day.
I do this to illustrate how convoluted the Income Tax Act is. The whole bill is full of this.
If there is anything that has urgent need, it is the simplification of the Income Tax Act. I despair of a government which has as its goal to fleece Canadians of as much money as it can and then selectively, through all of these different provisions of the Income Tax Act, make provisions from which one person or another is exempt.
I resent the tax exemption on camping facilities. I resent the fact that non-residents can come into Canada and rent the same space that I and my fellow Canadians can rent and pay a lower price for the same space. If the space is worth it, we should all pay the same amount. Non-residents are exempt because it helps to make us competitive in the travel industry. It is ironic that the bill discussed prior to this was the tourism bill. Tourism is very important to Canadians. It is a large part of our economy and it must be competitive.
In Bill C-24 we have a move to make it more competitive, but what about Canadians who choose to travel in their country, to enjoy their parks? They are priced right out of it. After they have finished paying their income tax, property tax, sales tax and their daily expenses, Canadians scarcely have enough money left to even consider going on a vacation. If they do go on a vacation they pay taxes on everything that happens when they go to different places, including parks. They pay huge fees now to the Government of Canada to enter a national park and then they pay the GST on top of that fee.
Speaking of the GST, I distinctly recall that the Liberals, when campaigning for the 1993 election, made some statements about not liking the GST. In fact, there were some members of the Liberal team who campaigned on trying to get rid of it.
I do not know if you were one of those, Mr. Speaker. I know that you ran under the Liberal banner and, of course, due to the neutrality of your position I am not able to draw you into these partisan debates. However, I think of all those other Liberals. Should I call them the green foreheaded Liberals over there? At least I see a lot of green, so that must reflect their foreheads.
Many of them ran under the campaign which said “We will kill the GST. We will eliminate it. It will be gone”. In fact, the hon. member who is now the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who in the last parliament was the Deputy Prime Minister, was actually forced to resign because day after day the press and the opposition kept reminding her of how she had said she would resign if the GST did not disappear. Finally, one day she had that critical moment when she went to her banking machine and it gave her a tinge of conscience. It said to her “You had better resign because you said you would if the GST was not gone, and it is not gone”. The Canadian taxpayers in her riding got to fork out another approximately $100,000 to run a byelection. They paid for the fact that she and all of her colleagues broke that election promise. They paid again. They paid for the election campaign.
Of course, it was well reported at that time that prior to her making this decision which showed that she had such a deep conscience there was some polling done, paid for by the taxpayers, which determined in advance that if, having resigned, she were to run again that she would be re-elected. Then she was able to fulfil her tinge of conscience and resign.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if that poll had said that if she had resigned over this GST issue she would not have been re-elected. I wonder if she still would have followed through on that deep pang of conscience. I wonder if maybe she would have just invented more excuses in order to hang on to power.
The point I making is this. There was a commitment to kill the GST, to eliminate it. It would be gone, the people were told, if they voted Liberal. I sometimes wonder how many Canadians voted Liberal in the 1993 election based on that promise alone. I think there were many of them.
The Conservatives brought in the much hated GST in 1990. I have never before in my life—and I have lived quite a long time—seen a tax which has gained such enduring hatred of Canadians.
Every week there are advertisements in the papers in Alberta where one store or another has a big sale and the biggest banner on the sale announcement is that there is no GST, but in smaller letters it says that the store will have to pay the GST because it is a legal requirement.
Instead of saying there will be a 7% reduction in prices, which would bring in only a few people, they put up a big banner that says “No GST” and the people flock there to avoid the GST. The stores find that they get more people coming to storewide sales when they have a no GST event than if they were simply to say they would reduce the prices by 7%.
The GST is a very much hated tax. I sometimes think that the Liberal government sits in the position of power in Ottawa based on, dare I say it—and it is not attributed to any individual—based on a fraud.
The people on the government side in the election campaign said they would eliminate the GST if elected. That is why Canadians voted for them. The government turned around and not only kept the GST, but harmonized it in those provinces participating. It is now a 15% tax instead of a 7% tax. We all know it is a harmonized tax and some of the revenue goes to the province, but I think it is also fair to say that instead of eliminating the GST in the participating provinces the government effectively doubled it.
That is the Liberal record on the GST. Bill C-24, which we are debating today, has included in it a number of GST provisions. I said at the beginning of my speech that I am not opposed to some of those provisions. There is an increase in tax on cigarettes, which is another topic. Bill C-24 reduces or removes the GST on a number of health care related services.
I would like to share this with hon. members. We recently had a funeral in our family. My beloved sister passed away about a month ago and we had the funeral. We did not pay much attention to this issue that I am now going to mention at the time of my sister's funeral, but I had a grieving constituent phone me because his wife had just passed away and he said “In the middle of my sorrow, I go to buy a casket for my wife, and the casket is $3,000 and the government wants another $210 in taxes, in GST, on the casket.” He was very upset. I was not able to comfort him in his loss, nor was I able to promise him that there would be no GST on caskets tomorrow, because there is, the government has arranged it.
I noticed in Bill C-24 that there is a change concerning burial plots and the GST as well, but I do not quite remember what it is. It is one of those convoluted things that I tried to read, but could not really figure out from the bill whether the GST will be increased on burial plots or whether it applies to non-residents, or what it was. However, there are some revisions.
The GST is everywhere. It is there when you are born, it is there when you live, and it is there when you die. The government has no intention of reducing or removing it. It loves the revenue. There is nothing that the government does not like to tax.
Here is an interesting one. I want to say a bit about the tax on cigarettes. It was about three, four or five years ago that cigarette smuggling was a huge issue, so the government decided to reduce the taxes on cigarettes to make the price differential between smuggled cigarettes and those purchased at the store less so there would be less demand for the black market, thereby reducing smuggling. The government tells us that this has had some effect.
Bill C-24 will once again increase cigarette taxes. It also provides for a rebate system to retailers in the cigarette marketing industry, but I will not go into that detail. However, I have to ask the question: If high taxes were part of the reason for developing the smuggling industry in the first place, would it not be possible that by increasing these taxes, as Bill C-24 will do, the problem will return? I think that is something the government should think about.
I want to talk a little about some of the other provisions in Bill C-24. One that comes to mind has to do with non-residents, cross-border transactions and the work of conventions. This bill talks about provisions for collecting taxes on gas and other utility transmission and generation. The bill also provides for a tax rebate for charities. Charities can get a tax rebate on the money they raise in bottle drives and things like that.
The real thing happening is that we are meddling. We are once again increasing the complexity of the Income Tax Act. There is no real change here. Nothing here will substantially change the tax level of Canadians. That is what is regrettable.
I would like to see the Liberals actually implement their election promise. Perhaps we should have a motion again in the House calling for the elimination of the GST. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I think that if you were to ask for it right now, perhaps we could get unanimous consent that the GST be eliminated. I would ask for that. Sure, why not?