Ken Epp

[Canada National Parks Act, May 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to rise in the House on this beautiful morning to debate an issue which is of great importance to Canadians. I am talking about the preservation of our natural heritage.

I am privileged to have been born in Saskatchewan and even more privileged to have been able to move to Alberta early in my life. For many years we lived within four hours of two of Canada's most pristine and loved national parks, Jasper National Park and Banff National Park.

We spent time in other national parks, including the park at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Waterton Lakes National Park.

I was chosen to speak on behalf of my party today because the name of my riding is derived directly from the national park in it, Elk Island National Park, which is located just a few miles outside Edmonton.

Elk Island is a unique park because of the fact that it is basically a marsh area. Indeed, the word elk implies that there are elk in the park. There are also bison and many other different forms of wildlife.

I had the privilege last year of hiking with some of the people in the park and, as the good song says“Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam”, we roamed with the buffalo. We had to be careful not to interfere with them lest they take exception to us and attack us because at certain times of the year they can be dangerous.

My love of the parks extends over the last 40 years. Some of the best memories I have include visits to the parks, both in Banff and Jasper. We went camping for a week in Jasper for our 25th wedding anniversary. When asked by my friends how our week had gone, I told them it was the worst week I had ever spent. I told them that the problem was, when we entered the park there was a big sign that said “Do not feed the wild animals”, so my wife starved me all week. Camping was not as much fun when I got hungry.

I love the park. Saskatchewan, as members know, has many acres of flat land. Every time I go to the mountains I am completely awestruck by their grandeur, their magnificence. I cannot come up with the words which could adequately describe the mountains.

If there are members of the House who have never visited Canada's Rockies between Alberta and British Columbia, they owe it to themselves to see one of the most beautiful parts of Canada.

Being campers, when we visited these camps we encountered a number of people from around the world. I remember one couple who were quite a bit better off than we were because they had travelled all over the world. One of the things they said was that they had been everywhere in the world, including the Alps in Switzerland, but the most beautiful scenery they had encountered was along the Banff-Jasper highway. Having travelled there several times I would certainly attest to that.

I agree with the general idea of a national parks system in Canada. I very profoundly agree with the concept that we must preserve the pristine character of our parks and our beauty spots, not only for ourselves and visitors from around the world, but for future generations; not only for future generations of Canadians, but also for future generations of people around the world who come to visit and enjoy the beauties of this country.

I mentioned earlier that when we were a young couple with young children we spent some time camping in the national parks. Lest I give the wrong impression, I might as well indict my wife on a very important issue. I have always loved the outdoors and camping under the stars. I remember as a young university student being out near the Rocky Mountain house area. We were preparing a youth camp for summer activities. I remember going to sleep that night, which was beautiful, clear and starry. We did not use the Celsius scale back then, but converting it to the Celsius scale it was probably about minus five degrees in the morning and there were about 10 inches of new snow. That is a picture of beauty which is etched permanently in my mind. I will never forget it.

As a young family I would have loved to have carried on with that camping tradition, but my wife was not so much inclined. She said that she did not really look forward to leaving her nice home, sleeping on the ground or in a tent and being vulnerable to wild animals, insects and all of that. Being the kind, loving husband which I clearly am, I made a concession and we purchased a travel trailer, one that would keep us off the ground, give us some protection when it rained and so on. We made that little compromise. We had wonderful times in our trailer at the campsites of the different parks.

The reason I am saying this is because those are such wonderful, warm memories for me; the environment in which it occurred, the hikes we took and the admiration that we had for the beauty that was given to us. I feel very strongly that we should preserve that and preserve its accessibility, which will be one of the themes of my talk this morning.

When we were a young couple, believe it or not, we could afford to go to Banff for a week. I was not a well paid person. Very early in our marriage we made the decision that my wife would be a full time mom. We have always lived on my income and will retire on my non-pension, since I am one of the members of the House who has opted out of the lucrative MP pension plan. We made the decisions on principle and I do not regret that, but we have never been well off.

I truly am a member of the House of Commons in the sense that I am a commoner. As a young family we were actually able to go into the parks of Banff and Jasper. Those were the ones that attracted us because of their proximity to where we lived. We were able to enjoy them. At that time the fees for camping and for using the amenities were within our budget.

I regret to say that the policies of the federal government over the last number of years have become, really, a case for the elites. It probably dates back to the end of the Liberal era before the Conservatives took over for nine years. It is now really only for the very rich.

We were at the campground not very long ago. I was rather saddened to see that most of the people there were the ones with the big motor homes. Obviously those who were independently wealthy could afford to spend time there, but there were not many people who came from what I would call the rank and file, ordinary middle income Canadians. That is a policy which is very regrettable.

For us as a family it was a wonderful experience.

I regret that the new generation, the moms and dads of today, the young couples, cannot really afford to go to Banff and to Jasper because the daily costs are so high. Many of them are spending time in the area just outside the parks. In southern Alberta we have a couple of areas which are really expanding very quickly. Canmore is probably the best example. It is a large area which is five or six kilometres outside the boundary of the park. That is where people are going because they can enjoy the beauty there. Perhaps they can take a day trip into the park, but they cannot stay in the park because this government and the government before it chose to set an entry fee structure that is beyond the reach of ordinary, overtaxed Canadian families.

That is a mistake as far as I am concerned. I think it is a very large error which I would like to see corrected.

We are talking today about national parks. I have no interest whatsoever in arguing against the desires of the people in Parks Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage to preserve both plant and animal life, to see that it remains undisturbed as much as possible. However, we used to say in Saskatchewan when I was growing up that if someone overdid something they were swatting a fly with a shotgun. It was a huge exaggeration.

I want to be very careful because I do not want to be misunderstood, but I believe that to some degree the ecologists, the biologists and the people at Heritage Canada and others are greatly overstating the degree to which the area needs to be protected.

I believe that we need to respect the land. I believe that we need to respect the parks. We have taught our children to obey rules like staying on the paths in order not to harm the vegetable life that is off the path. We have always done our part to keep the campgrounds clean. Our motto was: when a camper leaves he should leave nothing but the sound of his footsteps. I think that is important. It is a matter of individual responsibility.

Some of the extreme measures that are being taken by the people who claim they are protecting the parks are making them inaccessible to ordinary rank and file Canadians. I have already mentioned the fee structure which they are using to keep ordinary folk out. That is an error.

There are other things as well.

I think of the considerable number of letters and presentations I and my colleagues have received because of Heritage Canada's insistence on closing down the little grass strips for private airplanes in Banff and Jasper. It is impossible to defend the closing of those airstrips if we look at it in balance.

It can be said that the elk used to go across the field and now there is an airstrip and of necessity, there is a big 10 foot fence around it to protect the airstrip so the animals cannot go on the airstrip. Sure, but I have had the occasion to fly over those parks in a jet plane at 25,000 or 30,000 feet. When I looked down I really had to strain my eyes to see the little thread down there that is the Trans-Canada Highway. The towns of Banff and Jasper can hardly be seen from that height simply because there are as many trees in the towns as there are outside them. People live there and tourists come from all over the world to visit there.

To me when I look at it in balance there is a little pin spot which is a town, a little thread which represents a highway and perhaps a railway in the middle of miles and miles and miles of wilderness. Some people are concerned about one more little pin stripe just one-tenth of a millimetre long in the perspective of looking at it from that height. They say, “We do not care if a person in a small airplane gets into trouble. We will not have an emergency airstrip. Let him fly into the mountain”. I think it was the Minister of Canadian Heritage herself who said to let them land wherever they can. People in a small airplane cannot just land it anywhere on the side of a mountain without killing themselves.

That is a totally misdirected set of priorities. When it is more important for the elk and the deer to have a path to walk along than to preserve a human life which may be in danger, that is misplaced priorities. I simply say to the government that there is nothing lost by keeping open a small airstrip. There is nothing lost by that; there is only gain in terms of safety and accessibility to Canadians.

I have talked about the airstrip. I have talked about the fact that there are miles and miles of wilderness available for the wildlife and we as humans are surely able to also enjoy a part of it.

I would like to come back just for a second to the almost sacredness of the space in our parks. It is not a great secret that I am a person who believes in God. One of the songs I have sung many times is “How Great Thou Art”. I do not know if anyone here knows that song.

[Office Of The Correctional Investigator, May 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to enter the debate on this justice issue brought forward by the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint Hubert.

We are discussing once again the issue of justice and sentencing. I vacillate back and forth between the whole concept of holding people accountable for their actions in a meaningful way while at the same time upholding a very important principle in which I strongly believe. The principle I am talking about is our justice system, which in all aspects should be based on the principle that it is the safety of law-abiding citizens which should take pre-eminence in all cases. I also very firmly believe that if the rights of a victim and the rights of an accused collide, then the rights of the victim should take precedence.

I think this motion was brought forth today out of a sense of frustration with our justice system in Canada. I do not want to particularly pick on the current Minister of Justice, since I do not think the situation was substantially better under the previous minister. The way the justice system works in Canada is very seriously flawed. We have a minister who, unfortunately, does not respond well to issues which are very important to Canadians.

We have more than 500,000 names on petitions asking the government to do something with respect to the possession of child pornography. The Minister of Justice simply wrings her hands and says “I cannot do anything”. Canadians do not understand that. They do not like it and they have expressed that to me.

I mentioned in an earlier speech today that I spent a number of hours at trade fairs in two of the major centres in my riding in the last couple of weeks. One of the issues that came up over and over was the issue of child pornography. I can see my colleague being motivated to bring forward her motion when the minister does not respond to issues such as child pornography. The member is really bypassing the minister with her motion.

At the present time the annual report of the correctional investigator is tabled in the House by the minister. It is required by statute that the report be tabled in the House so that it will be available to all of us. Consequently, the minister can sit on it and forget about it. There is never a requirement to actually act on any of the recommendations. I can understand the member's frustration.

I feel bad about this because I know this motion has come forward from correct motivation. I wish the member had worded it a little differently, because then I would have supported it quite heartily. However, I have a real concern with a motion which lets a correctional officer prepare a report with recommendations that are binding on the House.

When we actually so arrange our affairs, we are in danger that parliament will not be supreme. We have already done that thanks to former Prime Minister Trudeau who brought in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with its overriding control over future parliaments. We have lost our autonomy. We no longer have a parliament that can pass a law based on the majority in a democratic process either of our people or of our representatives in the House.

If I am reading this motion right, the primary flaw that I see is that the motion would further erode the supremacy of parliament. I am sure the hon. member will correct me during her last five minute speech if I am wrong.

The way I read it, the motion states, and I quote, “recommendations would be binding rather than simple recommendations”. It means that the recommendations made in that report to parliament would not be debated or passed by the House. If they were, there would be no choice but to adopt those recommendations. I think that would be unwise.

Undoubtedly many of the recommendations would be valid and would carry the support, but if there were recommendations that were not supported by the majority of either our citizens or, by projection, their representatives in this place, then we ought not to allow yet another individual or small committee somewhere out there, that is neither elected nor accountable, to dictate to Canadians how the conditional system works. As I see it, that is the most serious flaw in the motion.

I would, however, like to say that we need to seriously look at the whole question of sentencing and we need to have better feedback.

I happen to have a major institution located a few miles from the boundary of my riding. Many of the people who work at that institution live in my riding. They live in the towns of Fort Saskatchewan, Gibbons or Bon Accord. They work at that institution and they express their concerns to me. Many of the things that happen in Correctional Service Canada are not really geared toward the protection of citizens they way they ought to be.

I commend the hon. member for bringing this motion forward. I certainly sympathize with her frustration with the system. We do need to look at the way this reporting should be done. However, it would have been better if she had moved a motion that said that those recommendations must be dealt with in the House within a certain length of time and that a subsequent vote on those recommendations would be a free vote, as Private Members' Business is. Perhaps that would have been a better way to accomplish the goals she is seeking.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1999, May 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am no different from other members of parliament. I am sure everyone in the House who is willing to admit it has heard stories and knows of some cases firsthand, as I do, of individuals who quote two prices to do something, for example to fix the roof. There is a price if they are paid cash and a price if they have to issue a tax receipt.

Yes, I think that is deplorable. It is really wrong for an individual to avoid the tax system. What he or she should do is help to elect a Canadian Alliance government to fix the tax system. Until that happens, people should really comply.

At any rate the problem is huge. I remember way back in 1993 when the Liberals were first elected and the Conservatives had been in power. Even then, because of the GST, it was stated that probably all of the deficit, which was estimated to be around $40 billion but it turned out to be larger, but $40 billion a year of government revenue was lost because of the underground economy. We never know exactly how much it is because the people who do not comply are the ones that are not tracked.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1999, May 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, again it depends very much on the individual situation. Let us talk of two adults, a husband and a wife, who earn $20,000 between them. If they have no deductions, then they would pay 17% on $20,000 which would be $3,400. That would be their total tax but the effective rate for them would actually be 8.5%.

The beauty of this tax system is that for each incremental or marginal increase in one's income, the tax is linear. I am speaking as a mathematician. It does not go up exponentially as it does with the Liberal scheme where if we make more and more the Liberals take a higher and higher percentage of it. We propose to take a constant percentage. Therefore, it is a truly—and what is the opposite of a regressive tax system—a progressive tax system. Those people who make $20,000 would pay zero. As the income goes up, the total amount that is paid in taxation goes up in a really nice continual curve. It does not have big leaps.

We hear these horror stories about people who got a raise or overtime pay but had less on their paycheques than if they had not worked that extra time. They got into a higher bracket. That will never happen with our system because it is a linear system.

It was a very good question and I appreciated the opportunity to answer it.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1999, May 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I need to congratulate the parliamentary secretary. That is such a super question. He could not have asked a better question.

There is this myth going around that the single rate tax, which is different from the flat tax, is a tax break for the rich. It is not. It is an equalization of the tax burden.

The basic exemptions are increased dramatically. We are going to give a percentage tax cut indeed to the average Canadian taxpayer. However the people who benefit the most are the families. For example a mom and a dad and two kids who earn $26,000, I do not have the numbers right at my fingertips on how much tax they would pay under the Liberal government but whatever it is, we are giving them a 100% tax break. Every tax dollar that they have paid they now will no longer have to pay. They get off the tax rolls completely because there is a $10,000 basic exemption for each of the adults and $3,000 for each of the two children which is $6,000. That is $26,000 they earn before they pay a single penny of tax. They get a 100% tax break.

I am not going to apologize for the fact that even those who are making more money also get a tax break. It is time for us to stop punishing people who earn money in this country.

If a person is making $50,000 or $60,000, and if they earn an extra $5,000, I can see where we are going to tax them on that extra income. However I reject the hypothesis that as they earn more we have to take a higher and higher proportion of it because that totally stifles economic growth and it kills the enthusiasm and joy of our citizens. If they earn $10,000, let them pay twice as much more tax as the ones that earn $5,000 more. I am talking about after those basic exemptions.

The other question the member asked had to do with the deductions from taxable income for all of the other expenditures. The short answer is that most of the deductions that are in place now would still remain in place. It is not a flat tax per se. It is a single rate tax. It simply means that there is a certain level on which earners pay no tax and after that it is 17% on every additional dollar after the basic exemptions. They still will be able to apply, for example, their deductions for charitable donations and others.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1999, May 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased and honoured to enter the debate on the income tax amendments. It may interest those watching in the wonderful world of CPAC to know what it is we are actually debating here this afternoon.

I was talking to a lady at a trade fair a couple of weeks ago. We have these trade fairs out west. I stood all day and listened to people about their concerns. Among their concerns definitely with tax day looming was the whole situation of taxes. This one lady said she always watched CPAC. I asked her if she had any other problems. She was a very delightful lady.

I want to bring to the attention of everyone in the House, as well as to those who are watching via the electronic medium, that we are debating Bill C-25. We have a tendency here, and the parliamentary secretary will agree, to bring all these things together. Even in his questions he was talking about budget 2000 which the Minister of Finance brought down several months ago. However, this bill is one which is now over a year old. I think people should know that. We are finally getting around to implementing measures that were introduced in budget 1999 some 13 or 14 months ago. It is really quite ridiculous.

Furthermore, this bill also covers two ministries. There are several amendments to acts which are under the co-ordination of the Minister of National Revenue and then others for the Minister of Finance. This is an act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act and the Budget Implementation Act, 1999. We are really doing catch up here and I do not mean that in the sense of something we put on our fries.

I would like to also point out some of the individual topics that are covered and make little comments about them. One of the measures in the bill is that the tax credits for individuals, the basic amounts and spousal amounts, are to be increased and the amounts are specified. This is a lame halfway measure the government introduced last year to begin to index the tax system.

Bracket creep has been a real problem. The government just loves to crow now about the fact that it has ended bracket creep. We have been calling for that for six years. For six years we have been saying to index all of the provisions of the Income Tax Act, particularly the basic exemptions so that people do not have a hidden increase in taxes every year. Finally last year the government started to do something about it and it took further measures this year.

After my little lecture speaking about last year's budget I will mention about this year's budget. Now the government has said it will restore full indexation. While I would like to put my hands together to applaud that, the government missed because in the last six years it has used bracket creep to ratchet up the amount Canadian taxpayers pay, to the tune of around $40 billion a year more tax revenue since the Liberals took office. That is since 1993. The Liberals have ratcheted up the income tax revenue over that time and now they say, “Are we not wonderful? We are now going to keep it there”. We were at a lower level; the government allowed it to go up and now says it will no longer increase it.

By the way, since I was a teacher and an instructor for 31 years I have the habit of showing graphs from the point of view of the people watching me. When I raise my hand I presume that people will see a blackboard on which I am drawing a graph and they are looking at it and I am sort of behind it. It is a skill I wish I could use here. I would love to have graphics, charts, overhead projectors and animated graphs using a computer. We would be able to communicate so much better.

The point I am making is a very important one. By lack of indexation over the last six years since the government took office, it has moved the basic rates up. Now it says it will increase the rates no further. As my colleague from Medicine Hat mentioned in his very fine speech, it is now claiming as taxes have been going up due to bracket creep, had the government not ended it in this year's budget it would keep on going.

The government is saying that based on what those rates would be in the next five years, it would be collecting a whole bunch of dollars but now it will not collect them and therefore the government will call that a tax cut and that will make everyone feel good. The fact is it has been a huge tax increase from the 1993 level to the 1999 level when the government started reducing the increase. Now it claims the level is flat. Let us hope the government keeps it that way.

There is the elimination of an individual surtax. We promoted and proposed that both the 3% and the 5% surtaxes be eliminated.

In the 1999 budget the Liberals undertook to eliminate the 3% last year, and I say great. I guess we should give them credit when credit is due. An income splitting tax is included in this legislation. It is rather interesting. While they talk about cutting taxes, here is one where they arrange to tax mostly young people. A tax is added to the earnings of a person living in a home with his or her parents. Those earnings are added to the income of the parent claiming an exemption. They introduced a tax on passive income. It is a tax increase no matter which way we slice it.

One could argue that it is only fair. Why should one person be able to earn an income and have to pay tax on it and the other one not? There is an element of fairness, but the fact of the matter is that they drew into the tax rolls individuals who were not there before.

The bill addresses a number of other issues. One I found particularly interesting was the one on communal organizations. There are a number of such organizations. We certainly have them in the west. I have several of them in my riding as a matter of fact. Instead of individuals owning farms there are communes. They are very successful farmers but do not own the land as individuals. Instead they all live on it. Actually they are delightful.

If any of my colleagues end up in western Canada and have an opportunity to visit one of the Hutterian Brethren communes it will be quite an experience. All the young people are taught to work. They all participate in the task of putting bread and butter on the table. They have animals. They are also excellent grain farmers and so on.

The particular measure provides that in order to compute the taxable income of communes they can apply the basic exemptions of all individuals who are part of the communes. This seems fair. I do not think there is anything patently wrong with it. I am not going to criticize it because I think it is fair.

Let us say that 50 people are making their living from a farm. If they all owned little pieces of land they could all claim their basic exemptions. None of them can claim personal incomes. They do not operate that way. They all live together. They share their food. They share their accommodations and so on. The costs are paid by the commune. To apply the collective exemptions of all of them to their income is a fair situation.

However it makes me think of a shortcoming that I often think about, particularly with respect parents who choose to have one of them stay at home and look after the children. That is also a form of commune. Only one parent is earning an income and the other parent and the children are dependants. Yet the government has never seen fit to apply a basic exemption for those members of the family who are not making an income. They always have a reduced exemption.

In our solution 17 we have proposed this in various income tax projections over the last number of years. We have been quite consistent in this regard. Both parents should enjoy the same basic exemption. There should not be a differential. Our solution 17 does the same thing. Whether it is a one income or a two income family it matters not. Each adult in the family would be eligible for a $10,000 basic exemption.

If they recognize the principle for communes of 50, I invite them to recognize and apply the principle to a commune of two: a mom and a dad looking after their children. Let us have a fair tax system so that we stop bleeding families dry and making it so difficult for them to make ends meet.

There are a number of other issues in the bill. I will skip right to the last one and make a comment on the bill before I say some general things. The last one has to do with income taxes related to the hepatitis C trust. We will remember that the Liberals were hammered for the fact that they wee very selective in whom they chose to give compensation. In the rules that were set up, if a trust is set up and it earns interest that interest should be taxable. They are talking about taxable income as a result of interest from these trusts.

Two days ago young Joey Haché was here again. He is one of the young fellows who has been highlighting the whole hepatitis C issue. So far we find that the bulk of the money paid out under that program has been to lawyers. The victims of the hepatitis C scandal at this stage are still mostly struggling to get compensation to reach them.

I would like to say a few things in general about taxes. It is interesting that the decisions we make in life are based on our perception of facts. They are also usually based on certain assumptions. Assumptions are sometimes a little different from facts because what we are doing is saying if we do this, then this is likely to happen. Perhaps it is not 100% predictable. It is a non-repeatable experiment in many cases.

For example, if I throw a glass of water out of a 12 storey building, chances are pretty good that when it hits the ground the glass will break. If it actually breaks I cannot repeat the experiment of throwing it to see whether it will break a second time. It is a non-repeatable experiment.

That is the case with some economic assumptions. We often hear from the government in its budgetary policy that it is creating jobs. It keeps talking about this, but no one ever admits on the other side that for every job it creates it is probably killing 1.1 jobs. Another way of putting that would be to say that for every 10 jobs it creates, it is killing 11. The reason is very simple. Canadian families are taxed to death. With all three levels of government most Canadians will end up having half of their income confiscated from them.

I thought of something last week during the Easter recess. I noticed that my garage roof was leaking. That is unfortunate because the water falls on to the car and because it is a tar roof it marks the car. I thought of the money I pay in taxes to help create jobs building a fountain in Shawinigan. If I could have my taxes reduced I would have enough money to phone the roofer and ask him to come and fix my roof. He would have a job for a day. We know how much mismanagement and mishandling there has been of government funds. The boondoggle has become quite a large issue in the country.

The fact of the matter is that I have had this idea for many years. When we take money away from people who have earned it, we are not creating new jobs. We are moving the jobs. That is what we are doing. If we take the overhead costs of that process, the cost of collecting the taxes and the whole bureaucracy of distributing the money, we recognize that maybe my ratio of 11 to 10 is wrong. It is a number I have pulled out of the sky. Maybe it is 15. Perhaps for every 10 jobs the government claims it creates through grants and contributions, the government is killing 15 jobs in the economy. I do not know what the number is. Perhaps studies have been done that give us that information, but I have an idea that is a safe assumption.

I would much rather leave more money in the hands of the people who earned it and have them create the jobs by having the roof fixed or by making a new business investment which would directly hire people. To me the marketplace is a much better creator of jobs than the temporary jobs created by a handout government, especially at election time when we see these handouts peaking.

We are in May 2000 debating the budget brought down on February 16, 1999, well over a year ago. Most of these things have actually already been collected. That is quite an issue.

We have an increasing lack of respect for the taxation collection agencies in the country. More and more people are beginning to question the legality of paying taxes and all these things. I do believe in law and order and all that, and I really do not think the so-called anti-tax people who claim that it is unconstitutional to collect taxes are right. Even if they were, I would still like to have a tax regime that works. I want to maintain the structure of solid government, such as we have in this country, but not with excessive taxes. When we behave this way we build a stronger case for them to reject our tax system.

There are a number of items for which the people have already filled in their forms. They have filed their taxes on this basis. Strictly speaking, we have not yet passed the orders into law. Those people who claim that this is not constitutional or not legal could probably win in the supreme court. I hate to say that, but they probably could because the court would have to rule that it would be illegal for the government to collect the tax or in some cases to make an exemption which had not yet been passed into law. I think that is regrettable.

The government should make sure when it has a budget that it deals forthwith in implementing the provisions of the new budget so that people can have confidence that what they are being asked to do is legal. I regret that my time is up because I could speak for hours on the whole issue of taxation.

[Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) Act, May 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order, which is one of clarification. It seems to me that the request for a recorded division was made yesterday. Therefore, we should now be ringing the bells to proceed with the vote, unless the whip would specifically ask for the vote to be further deferred.

[Crimes Against Humanity Act, May 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think we would be willing to give that consent provided that our member who wanted to speak would also have the opportunity.

[Taxation, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, you do not hear it often but I am going to tell you something that the government is really good at. With the annual tax filing deadline yesterday, Canadian taxpayers were reminded of how efficient the government is in separating them from their money.

We keep hearing the words tax reduction from the Liberal government, but the reality is there is no increase in take home pay. The finance minister is great at giving projections which sound good, but he is very slow in delivering real tax relief that Canadians can see.

Every taxpayer in the country is wondering, “Why should I send so much of my hard earned income to Ottawa when it wastes it so blatantly? Why should I fund a fountain in Shawinigan or dead rabbit art?”

Never in the history of Canada have so many given so much to so few to get so little. Yes, Canadian taxpayers are tired of being fleeced by the government. Only the Canadian Alliance with the 17% solution will give them true hope.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, May 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech and I have a curious question.

In her speech the member mentioned the different things that were changed in the Immigration Act. She drew attention to the fact that changes had been put in to accommodate same sex relationships. I am wondering how she envisions this working. If two young men were to go to an immigration office, and they said they were in a conjugal relationship, what is the government going to do to ascertain that is the fact and that they are not simply two friends from London who decided to come to Canada? How is that going to work?