But not for the Alliance, not for the reformers. They are advocating a flat tax whereby a wealthy person would pay the same tax rate as somebody who is teaching in an elementary school in Halifax or working on the assembly line in Oshawa or in a grocery store in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if that is fair, if that is just. That is what the Alliance Party in Canada is advocating, even flattening it more, giving the wealthier a bigger break, giving the rich a bigger break and putting a heavier load on the ordinary people. Basically and fundamentally it wants to cut back on the role of government, just cut back and cut back on the role of government. The Alliance says it wants to reduce the role of government in our society to the lowest common denominator. I do not think that is the way to go.
We need a more progressive individual tax system and a gradual elimination of the GST, which is regressive because in a way it is a flat tax. On the other side, we have to fill some of the loopholes in the current taxation system that are there for some of the wealthy and some of the big corporations in Canada. Finally, we have to readjust our corporate tax rate in Canada so that the large corporations pay more of their fair share. A number of years ago the large corporations paid a lot more in taxes than they do today. Today individuals are paying more and corporations are paying less. It used to be the other way in the days of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau and even in the first part of the Mulroney years when all this started to change.
The sad thing about it is that when the Liberal Party took over, instead of making a more progressive taxation system in terms of our society, it got spooked into a more reactionary and conservative taxation system because the Liberals feared the Reform Party. The Liberals feared the agenda of the Reform Party, now the Alliance. This Liberal Party made a sharp turn to the right. It is the most right wing, conservative Liberal Party we have seen in the history of our country and that is why we have to make a change.
With a fair taxation system we can give people the freedom to have more equality of condition. With a fair taxation system we can still raise a lot of government revenues for social programs, for education, health, research and development, social housing and the farm crisis. If we had a fair taxation system we could accomplish all these things for the common good.
One way to start is to make sure we gradually eliminate the GST. We could take the first steps in that direction by taking the GST off reading materials and some of the other basic necessities. That would help ordinary citizens of the country.
I will close with that and say that I hope to see Liberal colleagues getting up and telling me they are embarrassed that their party broke its promise in 1993, when the candidate from Peterborough, for example, was out there for the party that promised to get rid of the GST. I would like to see him get up in the House of Commons now and explain why his party broke that promise and why he hangs his head in the House of Commons whenever this issue comes up. His party has broken a basic and fundamental promise to the people of the country.
It is like medicare. I am told that way back in 1919 the Liberal Party promised health care for Canada. It promised medicare in 1919. That did not happen until about 1966 and it only happened at that time because of the leadership of the CCF of Saskatchewan, where the first health care system in Canada became such a popular idea that in 1966 the Pearson government brought it in. That took an awful long time. It took 47 years to keep that promise. How long will it be before the Liberal Party keeps its promise on the GST?
I end with that question and I hope some of those members have the courage to get up and tell us why they have broken faith and why they have broken this engagement with the people of Canada.