Madam Speaker, I am certainly pleased to speak today with regard to Motion No. 239. I infrequently speak in this place primarily because most of the time when I do want to speak it is not always possible and also because I speak only when I have something to say.
I know my hon. colleague has the best interests of our country in mind when he indicates that financial speculators apparently do have some play in some of the problems that occur in a lot of countries where there is not a lot of good control over finances.
I ask this question with regard to the financial transaction tax, the Tobin tax. Economists will tell us anything we want to hear or there are ways to build models to indicate what is good and what is bad.
As I understand it, the best way of avoiding a financial disaster is to have good management, good fiscal policy, good regimes and legislation to make sure that financial institutions and people who deal in financial transactions are managed properly.
The second thing which apparently is a myth is that foreigners are responsible for creating speculation in countries. There are a lot of greedy people in the world. Machiavelli said the strong will do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. There are people like that in this world. It does not matter what kind of situation they are in. If we were to give everybody in our country, all 30 million people, $1 million each some would have goodwill. They would want to help their neighbours and do not really care about money. After 10 or 15 years a lot of them would end up with zero cash and some would end up very rich, saying “We are all right, thank you very much. We do not care about all of these other people. Let them suffer because they did not do X and they did not do Y”.
That kind of world is not a good world to live in. It is a world where the law of the jungle prevails. Sometimes people say to me Liberals are soft. I can be as strong and as vicious as any of my colleagues around the table.
But if one really gets out in the jungle, as I did one time, and looks at the real wild animals they are not well dressed, they do not have three piece suits. They are ugly. They roll around in a lot of stuff, they smell like the jungle and they are vicious.
Some of the people who wear tuxedos, drive the big limos, live in places that are fenced in with servants and slaves and what have you think this is great. It is not a good environment to live in. In that kind of environment even the people who are working for them do not like them.
I will get back to the second point I want to make. Speculation starts in their own country for some people. They understand the rules. They understand the regulations. It is the stock brokers or the local banker who gives these tip-offs. They trigger these things. It is kind of like a BRE-X. The next thing we know all kinds of things happen. Then in come the speculators. The speculators become involved. If we could only get a buck every time somebody makes a transaction it would be good for the common good of all Canadians and this would not happen.
The third point which is probably the most important reason why this Tobin tax would be problematic is in this world there are many countries where trading occurs. The capital will flee to the country that does not have a regime in place where moneys are taken during transactions.
Although I know what we do in this House is very important, our discussions about how we regulate things and we are here as legislators, I am not here just to make laws. An old farmer told me when I was first elected “Go to Ottawa but don't make a lot of rules and regulations that you are going to place in a stand somewhere. Remember some times things like the ten commandments. That can get you very far”.
Sometimes notwithstanding that our colleagues come up with good legislation and there are a lot of good private members' bills that have been passed in the House, the best thing about private members' bills is that we discuss them. We look at all the angles and we pry and we probe. Sometimes the good ideas are stolen by ministers or by colleagues or by some group and used. We have to be mindful that we are just not here to make rules and regulations, put them in some kind of document, place them on a shelf somewhere or try them and they do not work or they make the system worse.
I understand the finance minister has looked at it and the department has looked at it. We hear the concern of the hon. member, but Canada is already exercising international leadership. We have a broad strategy to attack the underlying causes of financial market volatility. Big financial markets are not perfect institutions.
As well, I am told, the challenge we face is to find the best way of dealing with these problems, which economists call market imperfection. In other words, no market is perfect.
Proponents of the Tobin tax then argue that such a law would put sand in the wheels of international financial markets by imposing a very small percentage tax on a foreign exchange trader. And so the argument goes. This would discourage speculation. It would stabilize the financial markets without interfering unduly with longer term trade or investment.
Others are attracted by the tax revenue. There are a lot of people looking for these big slush funds, tax moneys. Politicians would love it so we could spend it and so that we could raise some funds which they believe would finance and enhance worthwhile programs.
We do have regimes for raising taxes. Those regimes are well thought out. This discussion is very good but as far as I am concerned this is not the way the government should go because of those reasons I mentioned.
