Mr. Speaker, we were in the questions and comments phase of the discussion. I have largely concluded my comments so I would entertain any questions.
However, I did want to remind the government of the issue of brain drain and the further complications in the tax code that Bill C-22 presents. I will give the example to the House of my own family.
My brother-in-law lives in Louisiana. My sister lives in Atlanta. They are part of the brain drain. In the 19th century, the great exodus of Loyalists to Canada on the underground railway had a song they used to sing. It was called Follow the Drinking Ground . The chorus of the song is:
So long old master Don't come after me I'm heading north to Canada Where everybody's free
That was the chorus of the song they sang when they came to Canada because Canada was the place where everybody was free.
Since then it is astonishing how things have changed. The underground railway has turned into a highway heading south, by which the best and brightest leave the country. They leave this country for better opportunities.
My own sister is an example of that. She has a degree in communications in French from Simon Fraser University and she is in Louisiana helping Canadian firms that are trying to sell Canadian products in the French Bayou country. She is a Canadian earning her keep in the United States because this country does not treat her the way she thinks government really should treat its best and brightest.
The United States has a better environment for cultivating, sustaining and taking care of the best and brightest in their country. The Americans treat young people as a resource.
In this country we do not get that. The finance minister brags in the House of Commons day after day about the fact that we have a balanced budget, but he does not give credit to the people who balanced the budget: young people, entrepreneurs, the best and brightest, small business owners, families, the people who sacrifice, and people in the university departments like the small university I went to, the University of Northern British Columbia, which has a crisis in its entire financing structure because of the government.
We have a balanced budget for a whole host of reasons, like the hospitals that get shut down because of this government and like the overtaxation of small businesses. The government stands atop a dustbin of bad decisions. It stands atop the rubble of bad financial decisions and atop the shoulders of small businesses and says that because of the government and its decisions Canada has a balanced budget. Canada has a balanced budget because of nothing government has done. We have a balanced budget because of a whole host of reasons, which frankly the government does not control. The finance minister and the Prime Minister do not appoint Alan Greenspan. They do not decide the economic growth rates of the United States. They opposed free trade. They increased taxes. They increased the payroll taxes that kill jobs and the Canada pension plan. They are driving the best and brightest out of this country.
They talk and brag about balancing the budget and about bills like Bill C-22 that we are debating today, but Bill C-22 goes in the wrong direction. It further complicates the tax code. It makes it less likely that people, entrepreneurs and builders, will want to stay here because they see that this country will be something they want to be part of in 20 or 30 years. That is not good enough.
I would love to see the day when we go back to that chorus of the underground railway, where Canada is an enterprise state, where we can sing that chorus again and be proud of it. For the government members who just walked in, I will remind the House of what that chorus is:
So long old master Don't come after me I'm heading north to Canada Where everybody's free
We need economic freedom and political freedom. We do not have them, we deserve them, and if we do not, we are only sacrificing our future.