Madam Speaker, when I was preparing to come to the House today to speak to the bill and to speak to the amendments, it caused me to reflect on the proper role of government in a free market economy. Reformers for the most part see this role as very limited in terms of the economy itself. We see it limited to the rule of law, freedom of contract, the enforcement of contract, the ability of Canadian companies to rely on the law to ensure that the contracts they enter into are going to be observed and that the rule of law will see that happen, and of course for the protection of consumers to ensure that no criminal or untoward actions of businesses and enterprises in the free market would be countenanced.
What we have here is a series or a successive number of governments, both federally and provincially, that have practised intervention more and more over a long period of time. In Canada we have as a result of this a distorted market at times, very much distorted when we take into account the grants and subsidies and other false inducements that government provides to the free market to try to influence it to do one thing or the other, the government's desire of the day, whatever that may be.
The other thing we see in this country is punitive taxation rates. I recently did a comparison. Take a person working in the United States and earning a salary of $60,000 a year. If that same person were in Canada and had a comparable take home pay, they would have to earn $134,000 a year when the difference in the dollar and the difference in taxation rates are factored in.
It is easy to see that Canadians and Canadian businesses are very much disadvantaged by that. The government's response typically is not to go to the heart of the matter, which is taxation and regulation. The government's response is regulate it. If it moves, regulate it, then regulate the regulations and then regulate the regulators. This seems to be the Canadian way, regulate everything in sight.
I suggest what we need is less regulation. If hon. members do not think government is intent on regulating, just consider what we are doing here today. What are we talking about? We are talking about regulating competition. While we are at it, why do we not start regulating the laws of gravity? Why not repeal Newton's laws? Why not repeal the laws of supply and demand? Government can do it. Obviously it has the power to do it. That is what the government is intent on doing.
Imagine if we tried to regulate Donovan Bailey or Wayne Gretzky and said we want you to run fast but not too fast, we do not want it to be unfair, we do not want your competition to be unduly disadvantaged. We cannot do that. Competition is competition. By the way, competition is good for the consumer. It is healthy. It sparks innovation. It causes people to look for the best way to accomplish something, whether it is building a house or a ballpoint pen. It causes anybody who is in that market scenario or that situation to look at the best way for them to participate and to draw customers to them.
What we talked about here in the House is regulating competition. I submit that the best thing this or any government can do in terms of competition is reduce regulations, stop interfering in the marketplace and abandon this punitive taxation system we have in Canada so that Canadians and Canadian businesses have more money to take home and more incentive to do what we all know needs to be done, which is create a viable, healthy economy.
