Mr. Speaker, I would have been more pleased had you invited them to be quiet and listen to what I had to say because I think it is important.
My former colleague from Grasslands in Saskatchewan said that his years here were a waste of time. This is what I am starting to feel.
We have had a number of good times in the finance committee over the last three or four years. I have served with some enthusiasm on that committee. We have had a considerable impact. We have had a good collegial attitude. We have been professional. We have listened to witnesses and have included what they have said in our reports.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my speech on the budget, most of our budget recommendations were not included in the finance minister's budget this year. However, we worked independently as a committee to give the finance minister advice so that the tax burden and the expenditure of public moneys would be in line with what Canadians wanted. That has now completely deteriorated. That is so frustrating.
All the Liberals just voted for closure. They said that they want to stop debating this. I have an inkling that most of them have not read the transcripts from our committee. They do not know what the issues are. All we are told is that they want to get this thing on the road so they can start collecting a tax so please stand up when told to. All of the members, including those who crossed the floor from the opposition benches to the Liberal benches, voted to shut down the debate.
Closure and time allocation would not be necessary if we treated with dignity the ideas and the conclusions of members of parliament and, as a matter of fact, the recommendations of the witnesses at the committee and the questions and concerns expressed by all committee members. I emphasize that all members of the committee were interested in hearing more details. This did not happen.
Instead, when it came time to vote, the members who had heard the witnesses, who had been there to hear our arguments, for the most part were pulled off the committee. Substitute members were put in whose only credentials were that they were able to vote the way they were told.
In other words, every amendment that came from an opposition party would be routinely defeated. A number of amendments came from the Liberals because the legislation was not perfect. They found a whole bunch of areas in this legislation which they wanted to change at committee stage and so they did. They brought in their amendments and all of those amendments passed and for good reason.
As a matter of fact, if members came to committee with an amendment and said that they had missed something and wanted to fix it, I would vote in favour of it at committee. Why not? My job is to do what is best for the citizens of Canada.
Yet in Bill C-49 there is the imposition of a tax. The parliamentary secretary will use perfect hindsight next fall when he looks at this new tax. He will look in his rearview mirror and will see all of the airlines that have gone out of business or that have cut services. Then the government will adjust the tax, after the damage is done.
Time allocation would have been unnecessary if members of the committee had been free to exercise their own judgment and to recommend to the Minister of Finance that the tax should be revised now to prevent the damage that it will do instead of looking at it in the fall to see what damage has been done. It is atrocious. Parliament is totally missing its responsibility and the opportunity to do what is right. I am appalled by that.
Those members very gladly step up to the plate for the Prime Minister and say that they will have more dignity because the Prime Minister will arrange for them to have bigger and better salaries. I say let them have the dignity of thinking and voting for themselves, whether it is on time allocation or in committee.
Let Liberal members get that dignity, then they will earn their salaries. Right now they could all be replaced by a bunch of little pneumatic dolls with little buttons that run a little air pump so that they stand up to vote on command. That is really atrocious.
I am very appalled. Perhaps next fall we will see on the news the impact this will have had on the airline industry and in services to small communities. Perhaps next fall when we look back at the damage that has been done the Liberals will say that a member of the House and the finance committee had the foresight to see this and warned the members, but they did not pay attention. They blindly went ahead and imposed a head tax for security instead of actually doing what was recommended by common sense, by the witnesses, and I am sure by economists, if they had had a chance to study it.
That brings me to another very important point. Why is closure being used when an economic impact study has not been done? It is incredible that we would put our country's airline industry at risk by imposing a tax when the department officials have admitted that they have not done an economic impact study on what the results of the new tax will be. They are just guessing. The finance minister pulled $12 and $24 out of a hat. It is incredible. In the United States the fee for airline passengers is $2.50 U.S. with a maximum of $5 on a trip.
Earlier today the parliamentary secretary said it is a very simple tax. That is not what the witnesses told us. That is not what people from the airline community have told us in their submissions to us. They have said this is an incredibly complex tax. It is based upon where a flight starts, where it ends and in some cases where it has been in between.
Did the passengers have to go to a major airport to make a connection to another little town? Perhaps they went from little town A to little town B , but they happened to go through Vancouver or Toronto to get there. What is the impact and who will pay the security tax? In some cases the passengers do not even go through security because the same gate is used. It is absolutely incredible that these people should be taxed.
The most important consideration is that the burden of funding the security issue is being placed entirely on airline passengers. We are ignoring the fact that on September 11 most of the people who died were not in airplanes. It is of public interest to have secure airways. The excessive tax will kill the very industry that needs to provide safe services. Sure, it will cut off airline terrorism, because there will be no more airlines on which to fly.
Words fail me, which does not happen often. I am out of words to say what a huge error we are making here and how despicable it is that this parliament with all this collective talent, and intellect presumably, is unable to see the situation which is so obvious.
