The member for Ottawa--Vanier said that was after it cut its own. Let us just examine that for a moment. It cut its own spending by 9%, but it cut transfers to the provinces by 20%. That was an easy target and of course provinces had to supply municipal services, so they had to be cut as well.
We have to ask the question: Why do we consume so much tax money in Canada to begin with? Why do we need all these taxes? The answer is that we have a government with a spending addiction. As I said, it is going up by $25 billion in the next three years alone. In the two years prior to 2001-02, under the former finance minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, we saw increases in spending of 6% to 7% a year. Why would he need that amount of money? Population growth and inflation, put together as a formula, were running at roughly 2% a year. We saw a government that was intent on running up spending, so that was 6% a year.
Why do we have this much spending? I would suggest that there are a bunch of business sector grants that are going out to the aerospace sector, for example. Hundreds of millions and in fact billions of dollars are being spent in grants and subsidies to the aerospace sector: Pratt & Whitney, General Electric, Bombardier and some of the biggest corporations in the world.
Therefore when the member talks about artists, I guess she is just asking for the same kind of treatment that some of our big businesses are getting.
However, members of the Canadian Alliance do not agree with that. To begin with, we do not think that these business sectors should receive that kind of grant. That is the reason we need this kind of tax. The government needs that kind of tax to cover off all of the wasteful and misdirected spending.
Instead of sending those business subsidies out, why not leave that money with Canadians? We will decide how to spend it. If we want to invest in Pratt & Whitney or in Bombardier, which are publicly traded companies, we can do that. I suggest we leave that money in people's pockets, that we reduce taxes for all Canadians, not just certain sectors such as artists, although I agree they are part of the composite that needs that spending reduced as well.
I agree that this is a better approach than we normally see from some of the members in the House where they ask for subsidies for certain sectors. Rather than ask for subsidies, we should ask for tax relief. The member for Dartmouth has done just that. I have sympathy for her argument, but I would not restrict it to only one segment of society.
We must examine what is happening with Canadian families. We must look across the border to the United States and the people we compete against every day for the product that we are selling and for our very jobs.
I just returned from Kitchener-Waterloo. In that one corner of Ontario $9 billion of goods are exported mainly to the United States. Those goods must compete with other products from other countries. They must also compete with taxes. George Bush's latest tax proposal, that has recently gone to the United States senate, has made the case that a family of four earning $40,000 or less annually will not have to pay any federal tax.
What do similar families face in Canada? They start paying taxes at $14,000. There is a $26,000 difference. No wonder artists and hard working families are concerned about the tax levels in the country. There are 30 OECD countries and Canada has the highest personal tax levels.
We will get more groups speaking out and saying that we are overtaxed. I agree with them because we are overtaxed. We must make the case for all Canadians, not just those of us in a special sector.
I will examine a little bit further where that kicks in. Basic personal exemptions in Canada on the federal side kick in at about $9,000. After that individuals begin paying federal tax. Does that make any sense? I think not. Those levels must be raised. In order to allow basic personal exemptions to be raised we must have a government committed to reducing spending and to get some priority on its spending. We must stop the wasteful spending that we saw when the government blew a billion dollars on an HRDC program that moved a Hostess potato chips plant from one place in Ontario to 30 miles down the road to another member's riding. That did not make any sense.
We have other areas where government advertising contracts have blown a lot more money. The gun registry is on its second billion dollars. It does not make any sense. The Auditor General has identified lots of wasteful spending.
We must cut out some of this wasteful spending. Let us get our priorities straight. We should leave money in people's pockets and let them decide how they will spend it. They will make wiser choices than the government of the day.