Mr. Speaker, I sincerely hope people watching us on television do not get the impression I am the only opposition member here. There are many others but I guess they are not ready to engage the hon. member.
I have a second question about the topic. If we look at making rules that follow certain principles, which is a good idea, it seems the Liberal government drafts so much hodgepodge legislation. When an issue comes along they make up a rule. They have no principles to guide them. The principle should be that a deduction, capital cost allowance or something like that should be available.
If the principle for mechanics is that we give them a deduction while they are in training, why do we not do it for dentists? Why do we not say dentists can deduct all the expenses they incur while buying equipment for their offices when they are in training but when the training is over we will end the deduction?
One principle should drive how we arrange deductions and capital cost allowances: they should apply equally to all Canadians irrespective of how they earn their living. The hon. member presumably created hope for the future by saying the government would go forward with the measure and possibly expand it. I must admit my expectations are not all that high. However we will continue to push the measure and work on it.
My next question has to do with the air travel tax. The hon. member did not dwell on it a great deal but he said the security tax for air travellers would fill an important need. I will pose a situation to him. I used to do a lot of my own mechanical work. I often worried while working on the transmission or something that it would fall on me and I would not be able to breathe unless it were quickly taken off my chest. I was always careful to use props and things that would prevent that from happening while I was under the vehicle. I was a Saturday mechanic and did not have all the fancy tools people have.
The government is looking at the airline industry and saying “We will drop a transmission on this guy's chest. We will come back tomorrow and if he is not breathing we will take it off.” That is not the proper way to look at the issue.
We have economists in the finance department who are supposed to be able to look to the future and estimate the effects of different measures. We were told in the finance committee that in this case it was not done. No study was done on the effects of the air travel tax.
I am concerned that by the time the finance minister looked at the issue in the fall to see if the government was getting too much revenue the answer would be no because many small businesses which attracted air travellers and paid the tax would have gone belly up or stopped their services. Revenues would go down on that account. The tax would not be reduced because there would be fewer people paying it. In the meantime we would have lost many valuable services.
Why is the government not doing a study prior to implementing such a devastating tax?