Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your elevation to the Chair. I am pleased to rise to debate Bill C-22 which is, as the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance has indicated, a very substantive tax bill which appeared before this place in the form of a ways and means motion several days ago in the session. It seeks to give effect in part to tax changes proposed by the hon. Minister of Finance in his economic political statement here before the dissolution of parliament at the call of the election.
Let me say at the outset that the bill before us is a classic example of what has gone wrong with parliamentary oversight of legislation, particularly with respect to taxation. The bill before us has some 513 pages of technical amendments. I can say with a fair degree certainty that not a single member of this place, let alone the parliamentary secretary who just spoke or the minister he represents, has read or will read. It is a bill that exercises enormous power over the lives of Canadians through the Income Tax Act which in itself has coercive powers delegated to it by this parliament. The some 500 pages of amendments in the bill are amendments to a tax act which runs over 1,300 pages long.
Let me remind my hon. colleagues that in the House in 1917, before it burned down, this same parliament passed what was called the temporary Income War Tax Act. It ran all of seven pages. The government of the day of then Prime Minister Borden said that the bill was only necessary for a short period of time to finance the war effort during the great war and that we would be able to repeal it shortly thereafter. This was an income tax which applied only to very wealthy Canadians at the time, people who were in the top fraction of income earners. The vast majority of Canadians were unaffected by it. The politicians said that it was temporary and that would be repealed.
This does not look like a repeal bill to me. This looks like another 500 pages of amendments on top a 1,300 page statute of which I doubt a single person in this country understands the totality. There might be a tiny handful of tax experts in academia or in the Department of Finance who have even a vague grasp of the myriad complexity of the Income Tax Act which we are seeking to amend today. This is a testament to the enormous complexity of the tax code with which Canadians must grapple every day.
That act in 1917 was passed in good faith by parliamentarians and committed to the Canadians, who they were taking money from to finance the war effort, that it would be repealed. It was not. Not only was it not repealed, it was added to, broadened and expanded to bring more and eventually every single working Canadian into its ambit.
Today we end up with an enormous, complex web of tax laws which inhibit the wealth creating potential of this nation which diminishes our productivity. It drives down our competitiveness and undermines the standard of living of Canadian families who are working harder to get ahead but who are falling behind because of the tax act which the bill seeks to amend.
Let me say as a matter of principle on behalf of the official opposition, the Canadian Alliance, that we stand four-square against this huge complex and destructive system of penalizing work, investment, risk taking and wealth creation. These are the very virtues and habits upon which a prosperous and free nation is built. All of those things are undermined by taxation in general and this extraordinarily complex tax system that we have in this country.
A political philosopher once remarked that the power to tax is in fact the power to destroy. It is the power of government to use its monopoly on coercive force to reach out the hand of the state and to take from individuals, businesses and corporations the fruits of their labours. We can never underestimate just how destructive that power can be. We can never know how many small businesses or how many dreams have been vanquished because people were unable to realize their potential and dreams of starting up and operating a successful business because they were unable to keep enough of the fruits of their labours to keep their heads above water. That is what the bill represents.
I am sure the parliamentary secretary who just spoke perhaps does not reflect often on the first principles of taxation. It is important for us every now and then in this place to remember the enormous power that we wield through this taxing power. We do so somewhat recklessly. As I suggested, I am certain that not a single member of the House has now or will read the entire bill.
I tried to make my way through as much of it as I can. I consulted the experts in the finance department. I received the bill a couple of days ago and I am supposed to stand here on behalf of the official opposition, which has a quasi constitutional obligation to be the watchdog of the government particularly with respect to issues like this, and provide a thorough, detailed, thoughtful analysis and assessment of the bill, when these 500 pages of technical amendments were just delivered to us.
I know for certain that the finance minister not only has not read the bill, he is likely at best vaguely familiar with the impact of the amendments contained herein.
Even though the official opposition will vote against it for a number of reasons, this will undoubtedly go on to the finance committee which, I predict, will have fairly brief hearings because none of the members will be able to penetrate the impenetrable complexity of the Income Tax Act.
Well meaning and very bright officials from the Department of Finance will appear before the committee to explain and analyze, as best they can, the impact of the bill. The committee members, who were elected to represent the best interests of their constituents and to uphold any parliamentary oversight and scrutiny, will have to take the bureaucrats at their word and then the bill will come back to this place and be passed.
Members will not understand what they have passed because of the complexity of the act. That is a very serious concern, but it does not need to be that way. In a more functional democratic institution, the American congress for instance, both the upper and lower houses have ways and means committees with independent legislators and adequate staff resources. The staff of those committees have become experts on the complexities of tax legislation and are able to frame and craft bills of this nature with a real understanding of what they are doing. The U.S. congress has specific committees to deal with taxing power and taxing legislation.
As a result, congress and the people it represents have the benefit of real, serious, substantive democratic oversight and input into tax legislation. We only pretend to have such input in this place because of the dysfunctional nature of parliament and the complexity of the Income Tax Act.
How do I know that is the case? How can I prove that the consideration of tax legislation does not work in this parliament? It is very simple. This bill, and at least three other bills before the House right now, include amendments to tax legislation that seek to undo the drafting mistakes of previous bills passed by parliament. It is unacceptable that we waste the valuable time of parliament time after time by undoing mistakes made in the drafting of legislation. Those mistakes were not identified by members of parliament because they do not have the expertise, the time or the resources. What is the point of digging down into the depths of a bill if it will be passed anyway?
We do not have time to ensure at a meaningful level that the bureaucrats have it right. The minister does not do that. He receives draft legislation from bureaucrats, rubber stamps it and sends it to parliament. We ought not spend time correcting the errors that drafting officials and bureaucrats have made. If we had more serious parliamentary scrutiny, oversight and involvement in the development of tax legislation, and a tax code which made sense to ordinary taxpayers, we would not need to constantly revisit bills such as the one before us.
For those reasons my party stands four square for the reform and simplification of the tax code. I will quote from the Canadian Alliance policy declaration. It was not dreamed up by any one person. It was the result of a grassroots, bottom up democratic process. Our members agreed that:
We will restore public confidence in the fairness of the Canadian tax system by reducing its complexity. We will restore indexation and move towards a simpler tax system, built around—
This is a novel concept for a government which likes to play the politics of envy and class warfare. It continues:
—a single rate of taxation to ensure lower taxes for all Canadians. We believe that all Canadians above a minimum income level should share in the cost of the services provided by government, which benefit us all.
That is what we seek to do.
The hon. parliamentary secretary suggested the bill would give effect to what he called, disingenuously, the largest tax cut in Canadian history. That is absolutely bogus. He argues the bill would give effect to the political statement made by the finance minister in October.
Let me give credit where it is due. After seven years of advocacy in this place by the Reform caucus and then the Canadian Alliance that tax relief be our nation's highest economic priority, and after millions of Canadians demanded to see a little more of what they earn and said they were fed up with Liberal tax increases, the finance minister, days before an election, finally came forward with some modest tax cuts.
However they are not real tax cuts for real people. I challenge people to take the paystub test. People who watch the debate in this place see me and my colleagues stand to demand the finance minister cut taxes and they see him stand to say he has already done so. How are people to know which of us is telling the truth? I have a very simple test.