The Canadian Alliance. I get mixed up. It was the Reform Party, then it was the united alternative, then it was C-R-A-P, then it was the Canadian conservative and reform party of Canada, and now it is the Canadian Alliance.
I was asking a question because a proposal came from one of the leadership candidates for that party which was very intriguing. The headline read: “Provinces should collect taxes, not Ottawa, Day says”. As I said before, I thought I was reading the National Enquirer , not the National Post when I saw the headline. I have not seen such a radical idea for a long time.
Stockwell Day is a leadership candidate for the Alliance. He is aspiring to lead that party. I see that some of the Reform Party members are a bit embarrassed by what he said. The article read:
The federal government should be stripped of its tax-collecting powers and depend on the provinces for its funding....He said provincial governments should collect all taxes above the local level, and send Ottawa a cheque every year to sustain the federal administration.
Here we have someone aspiring to be the leader of a national party who is advocating that the federal government collect no taxes, zero taxes. I have not heard an idea like that for a long time. It is far out in lulu land. I know this guy takes some pretty extreme positions on a lot of social issues, but now he is taking a position that is very extreme in terms of public, fiscal and monetary policies. Imagine, a person aspiring for federal office who is advocating that the federal government collect no taxes at all. I am really curious to know whether members of the Alliance caucus support that position.
If we go back in history to the conference held in Philadelphia on the foundation of the United States and its federation, one of the ideas was that the states should collect the taxes and then submit a check to the federal government every year to pay for the federal administration. That idea was rejected back in 1776.
People talk about the Alliance-Reform party being a throwback to the 1920s and 1930s, but here is an idea that is a throwback to the 1770s, and even then the idea was rejected. It was an idea that was unworkable to govern a country at that time.
I think people should be aware of what this leading contender for the Alliance-Reform party is saying he would like to have as his vision for the country, where the federal government would have its hands totally tied and would collect no taxes whatsoever, but would depend on the provinces for every single penny required to run the federal administration.
Is that the kind of vision we want? Is that the kind of country we want? Is that the kind of holding company vision of the country we want? The federal government and the federal parliament would be subject to the whims of the provinces to collect taxes and send a cheque every year to the federal government. I suggest not. The reason I raise it in this debate is that the debate is about our taxation system and our monetary system.
I see the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands has just arrived in the House. I know he is a very sensible man from Saskatchewan and I am sure he is upset with Stockwell Day for suggesting such an idea of lunacy that the federal government would collect no taxes and that all the taxes would be collected by the provinces. I have never heard anybody put forth that kind of idea before.
It is important that Canadians know where this new party is heading in terms of its vision of federalism and its vision of Canada. It does not want the federal government to collect any more taxes. The provinces would do that and send a cheque every year to the federal government. That is a very intriguing and very interesting idea from a person who is aspiring to federal office.
The bill before us talks about a number of changes in the sales tax system, the excise tax system, the GST and other taxes in the country. Concerning the GST we suggested during the prebudget debate that the federal government make it a priority in terms of starting to phase out the GST by cutting it back by 1% in the budget, another per cent next year and so on, until the GST is eventually rolled out and scrapped.
A few years ago, going back to the 1993 campaign, the Liberal Party across the way was in opposition. It was campaigning for the election in the fall of 1993 and saying that if it were elected it would eliminate the GST. That has not happened. It has not eliminated the GST. It has kept the GST. The GST is still here today.
It seems to me the Liberals have broken a pretty fundamental political promise by keeping the GST. The only member across the way who has actually done something about it is the former deputy prime minister, the Minister of Canadian Heritage who resigned her seat because she had made that promise. She put her seat on the line in a byelection. She is the only one who has done something honourable in terms of trying to address the promise made in 1993 to abolish the GST.
They have not kept their word. If we look at the polling of the Canadian population done by the Department of Finance about a year or so ago, it shows that the number one priority of the Canadian public in terms of tax cuts and tax changes was the elimination of the goods and service tax.
Despite public opinion, despite what Canadians are saying to us and to the pollsters every day, the federal government decided not to cut the GST. It decided to address tax changes in terms of general income tax, corporate tax and the like. I suggest it is out of touch in terms of its fiscal policy as it pertains to tax cutting.
When we talk about a bill that implements many changes coming from the budget, we have to look at some of the priorities of the federal government as well. As I look at federal government priorities, the number one issue that should be addressed today is the issue of the funding of health care. For every dollar of tax cuts in the budget only two cents went into increased funding for health care. No wonder health care is in a crisis. No wonder Canadians from every province and territory say that this is the number one issue.
It is in crisis largely because the federal government has cut back transfers to the provinces under the CHST for health care and education by billions and billions of dollars. The health care system is now funded by about $4 billion a year less than it was in 1993 when the Liberal Party took over government. It has cut back on health care and social programs more than any Conservative government has ever done in our history. That is why we see lineups in emergency rooms and a crisis in the funding of health care across the country.
I suggest that the priority should be to bring funding back up to the level it was in 1993, to add an additional $4 billion per year in transfers to the provinces.
The health care system was started back in the 1960s when Lester Pearson was prime minister, after being founded in Saskatchewan in 1961 under the then CCF government of Woodrow Lloyd, the successor of Tommy Douglas. After it became a national policy, a national goal and part of a national dream and vision, the federal government committed to funding health care on a 50:50 basis with the provinces: 50 cents from Ottawa and 50 cents from the provinces. Health care went along relatively smoothly for a number of years.
Then a number of years ago it started to change with new funding arrangements, to the point today where the federal government contributes only about 13 or 14 cents on the dollar depending on the province in terms of cash support for health care. I suggest that is not good enough. Government priorities should change and the number one priority should be health care.
Another matter should be addressed in terms of the government's fiscal policies. It should look more seriously at what is happening to farmers, in particular prairie farmers. Prairie farmers are going through the biggest crisis they have gone through at any time since the 1930s. In the 1930s there was a world-wide crisis in terms of a great depression and in the prairies there was a great drought, so there was the combination of a drought and a depression. Now we are seeing the biggest crisis since that particular time.
One reason for the crisis is that the United States and Europe are subsidizing grain farmers to a large degree compared to what we are doing in this country. In Europe a grain farmer gets about 56 cents on the dollar from the treasury of the European Union in Brussels. American farmers who farm just across the border from my province of Saskatchewan in Montana or North Dakota get about 38 cents on the dollar from the federal treasury in Washington.
Does the House know what it is in our country? Farmers receive about nine cents on the dollar from Ottawa in terms of a support payment under various programs to our grain farmers. Our farmers receive nine cents on the dollar. American farmers get 38 cents on the dollar. European farmers get 56 cents on the dollar. We see right away that we have a very unlevel playing field. That is why we have a crisis in prairie agriculture such as we have not had since the 1930s.
A gentleman by the name of Nick Parsons drove his Massey combine from British Columbia to Ottawa and parked it on the street in front of Parliament Hill about two weeks ago as a way of drawing attention to the crisis. He then had a chance to go over to 24 Sussex Drive and have a whiskey with the Prime Minister and exchange some ideas. He enjoyed the whiskey. He enjoyed the conversation, but what Mr. Parsons and farmers want is to put some beef in the sandwich. They want more money for prairie farmers so that they and their families can survive, pay their bills and seed their crops next spring to feed the people of this country and the people of the world. That is what should be done.
For the first time in many years we now have the fiscal capacity to do that. In the fiscal update last year we had a projected surplus over five years of around $100 billion. Surely to goodness, in addition to health care, farmers could receive a couple of billion dollars extra with about $1.3 billion targeted for Manitoba and Saskatchewan. That would help them survive as farmers, pay their bills, seed their crops, maintain their way of life, maintain the rural fabric which is so important to our country, and maintain the small towns and small villages.
That is what we are asking on this side of the House. That is what Manitoba and Saskatchewan are asking of the government. That is what our people are asking for, but we do not see it coming from the federal government across the way. These are some of the priorities which the federal government should be addressing and they are not being addressed.
We also need a tax system which is fair, a tax system which is progressive, and a tax system which is based on the ability to pay. That is becoming a very important issue today. The Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party of Canada is a long name. It will require a longer ballot in the next election campaign. It is saying that it has a new idea for taxes. It wants a 17% flat tax rate right across the board: regardless of what one makes, one would pay 17%. That is an idea that even right wing Republicans in the United States have rejected with the exception of Steve Forbes. Even the George Bush campaign has said that idea is too reactionary and too conservative for right wing Republicans. Yet it is an idea being pushed by the Canadian Alliance Party.
Why is it an idea that is not acceptable to good progressive thought? If everybody pays the 17% bracket, those who make $50,000 or $60,000 a year in taxable income would pay 17% as they struggle to meet needs in terms of themselves, their spouses and their families, while those who make $1 million or $2 million a year would still only pay 17%. The big tax break would be for the the millionaires and the wealthy.
That is not the way the country should go. We need a good progressive tax system based on the ability to pay. Those who make a lot of money would pay a higher percentage in taxes. Those who make less money would pay less in taxes. That is the Canadian way. Our tax system should be more progressive, not less, and certainly should not go back to a flat tax where everybody pays the same percentage rate regardless of one's income, which is the way the Reform Party wants to go.
I conclude by saying what I said at the beginning. I would like to hear the Canadian Alliance Party respond today in this very important debate on the fiscal future of our country. I would like to hear Canadian Alliance members respond today on whether or not they support their leadership candidate, Stockwell Day, who has made the radical proposal that the federal government withdraw entirely from the field of collecting taxes. I repeat that in case there are hon. members in the House now who were not here a few minutes ago when I mentioned it.
According to a copy of an article from the National Post last weekend headlined “Provinces should collect taxes, not Ottawa”, Stockwell Day is saying that the federal government should be stripped of its powers to collect taxes and that all taxes in the country, except local taxes, should be collected by the provinces. Every year the provinces would then send a cheque to Ottawa for the federal administration of the country.
I have not heard an idea like this for an awful long time. I am very interested to see whether or not the people on my left will rise to say they support Stockwell Day and his radical idea, his vision of Canada that the federal company is a sort of holding company funded by the provinces. I would like to know the response of Canadian Alliance members to that.
The Liberals can respond to that too. If there are any Liberals out there who support Stockwell Day in his vision of fiscal federalism where the federal government collects nothing, I wish they would rise and tell me. If members have any questions or comments, I will take them now.
