Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the motion from my colleague from Kings—Hants.
I was disappointed by the Conservative response in particular, because the motion was presented in a totally non-partisan way to address an issue which more and more Canadians have come to regard as of critical economic importance. I do not think it is a right wing or a left wing issue.
The parliamentary secretary kept talking about corporate taxes. My colleague never said a word about corporate taxes. It does not necessarily involve corporate taxes. The parliamentary secretary went on about all the accomplishments of the Conservative government. Well, maybe yes, maybe no, but that is not the point.
The point is whether we can make Parliament work, whether we can have a study over a course of one year to deal with a problem that is increasingly important in the minds of many Canadians and many people around the world. I do not know why the Conservatives are so hostile to that idea, although the good news is they have more than a month until the vote, so with any luck they might choose to reconsider.
Very rich people are concerned about inequality. The late Wallace McCain, as my colleague quoted Frank McKenna on, was concerned about that. The case of Warren Buffett is well known. He was concerned that his secretary paid a higher tax rate than he did. These are not raving socialists. These are very rich business people.
I therefore cannot understand the government's attitude in this regard. I hope that it will change its mind over the coming weeks.
A lot of work has already been done on this, particularly by the OECD. I can perhaps mention some points made by the OECD.
The OECD spoke about three important areas for improving income distribution. First, build human capital; second, build a tax and transfer system; and third, create jobs.
All three of these areas are important for the subject at hand. We do not know enough about them all, which is why the proposed study is so important. We do know something. The first of these, the creation of human capital, is really important for the improvement of income inequality and the increase in equality of opportunity.
As my colleague mentioned, if children are educated how to read at a young age, that will improve their life skills and life chances and this will have a positive effect. There are many other areas, training and retraining, education. All of these are critical to the success of younger and older Canadians. That is one major domain, human capital or human skills, that is of critical importance in this area. We could have done the study, and hopefully we will have such a study, to examine best practices in various places around the world.
There is the Quebec child care program. There are experiments and important lessons to be learned, perhaps from Germany or some of the Scandinavian countries. If we do not do this study, we will not achieve any of this.
The second domain is the tax system and social transfers. The government mentioned the working income tax benefit, WITB, which was a joint program in a way because we brought it in in the 2005 budget. We then lost the election and the Conservatives reintroduced it. This is a very effective program to both increase the efficiency of the economy and to reduce inequality.
However, we cannot solve the whole question of inequality with one WITB program. I think if we had this study, we would find more WITBs, more things to do that would reduce inequality, while at the same time potentially increasing productivity and the efficiency of the Canadian economy.
Germany, again, is a good case. Germany has actually had stronger growth recently than Canada, lower unemployment and less inequality. Maybe we can learn from the Germans what they have done well in the area and how Canada could copy some of the ideas.
There is not a socialist government in Germany. We do not have to be fearful of those dangerous socialists from Germany. It is actually a conservative government.
Finally, there is the third point of the creation of jobs. As others have said, the best solution to poverty is a job. That is certainly true. I am sure all sides of the House agree that continued success in creating jobs is a really important ingredient both for its own sake to create those jobs and also in terms of the reduction of inequality and increase in equality of opportunity.
In closing, let me say I think this motion was presented in a positive and non-partisan spirit. It is a balanced proposal, neither left nor right. It has the potential to launch us on a track that will allow the government and Parliament to address one of the more pressing issues affecting Canadians today. The only regrettable side of things is that the Conservatives have provided so far a very partisan and negative response. I can only say, in concluding, that I hope in coming weeks they will have sober second thoughts and possibly be able to support this motion.