Mr. Speaker, another rules based system that we support is the rules based trade. We just saw the government at meetings in Cancun, Mexico with the WTO which utterly failed. It was an opportunity that the government had through a rules based system to make some headway and it went nowhere.
We heard about the EU, we heard about the U.S. and we heard about developing countries. Where was Canada? It could have been bridging the gap between some of those countries and doing what it was supposed to do?
I think the diminished position of Canada on the world stage created by the government is causing some of this lack of talk on our behalf.
Last year $1.5 billion was returned to Canada through this double-dipping system tax free. We are not talking about eliminating all of it. We are talking about eliminating the double-dipping that allows this to go on. Two auditor generals have said that something needs to be done. It is ridiculous and it just keeps going on and on.
As we look at this and try to be realistic, it is too bad the Minister of National Revenue avoided a lot of the key issues in what the motion is presenting today and did not address them. It would have been good to hear her do that but she chose not to. I guess that is her choice.
However when will the government get serious about creating an atmosphere in which entrepreneurs, industry and risk takers can flourish? On the one hand we have a tax system that rewards a few at the top of the scale. On the other hand we have a tax system that gets in the way of initiative, productivity and people. They look at their tax returns at the end of the year, whether they are a mom and pop business or a mom and pop home trying to get by, who ask where all their money has gone. They have worked hard all year, done their part but where has their money gone. When they look at it, there are payroll deduction taxes, income taxes, gas taxes and tax and tax. It just gets to a point where it stifles creativity and hard work.
That is the underlying problem. Most people say to us, as politicians, “Just give me a chance”. When they come into our offices, they are not looking for non-repayable grants. They just want a chance to use their initiative, to use the few dollars they have put together to create a business that they know will succeed if just given that small opportunity.
As I indicated, if we could just possibly do that as a country, then we could create this kind of initiative. However it will not happen. It is certainly will not happen over the next seven months until the next election. Hopefully it will happen after that next election with a new government that respects the individual people in the country who work hard, that respects the dollars in their pockets and will not take those dollars away from people when they need the money for themselves.