Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to offer some general comments. I can understand, and I appreciate this debate that we are having and I am listening to what the Members are saying. I am a returning Member, but I think from my experience of having sat through four budgets, and argued the points here for the last four years, if it has taught me anything it is that I cannot accept all of the information that the government feeds us at face value. I don't mean to imply that the Ministers somehow hide their information or anything like that, it is just the fact that our consensus system of government is set up in such a way that it really puts the Regular Members on this side in a disadvantaged position. We do not have the machinery of the department, and the Department of Finance, and economists, and accountants who do these numbers.
In the last Assembly there was definitely -- and I don't want to go back there -- but I think it is important to what we are doing here, and my point is I feel like I was on a ride in the last Assembly where it was let's just spend and spend our way into utopia. There was probably all of the same factors that we have now, our fiscal relationship with Ottawa, dealing with our social programs, social issues, the need to build up infrastructure, all of that was all put in a positive light. So we were on a spending spree. Now we have an Assembly and a Cabinet that seems to be on the other extreme. My position is that I refuse to get on this bandwagon. I don't want to go on a spending spree, and I don't want to go on this fiscally conservative, cut the budget and raise the taxes all at the same time regardless of what is going on. I refuse to go on that ride.
I have a question on the process too. I share the same view as many Members here who feel they have been disadvantaged for not having gone through the business planning process, and the fact that this taxation is being introduced in the first four months of this government. I really believe we have not had a chance as a new Assembly and new government to look at the whole business planning process and make sound judgments and observations about how we are spending our money. If at the end of that process I am provided with the information that convinces me that we have no way to go but to raise taxes, cut the spending because we have to meet the deficit requirement or whatever, then I am prepared to do that. At this point we do not have that information. For the life of me, I don't understand how in the last Assembly at 14 percent we had two windfalls, there were corporations that filed corporate tax in the amount of many millions of dollars at 14 percent, which tells me we didn't have to reduce the rate to attract anything. We reduced it to 12 percent and we were sold on that. Now, two years later, we have to put it back to 14 percent because we have been hit hard. Not only have we had to give back every cent we got on this windfall, wherever it came from, but then we are being penalized for the next hundred years.
I'm just not being fed the kind of information that I expect us to be fed and given as consensus government Regular Members and I feel that I should have equal power and equal strength as any Cabinet who is over there because this is not party politics and they're not supposed to be operating like a party and saving their information and justifying and philosophizing and interpreting facts that suit their needs. For that reason I'm not prepared to go on this.
This is one of three series of taxation. It's not just corporate tax increases. We're looking at increases in our personal income tax, we're looking at increases in payroll tax, and I'm telling you, if at the end of all this at least one-year exercise we are convinced and I'm provided with evidence that suggests that we don't have any other option and we are faced with major cuts in social programs, then I'm prepared to accept that. But the time is not now for me.
Another point on the corporate tax is, I understand that at 12 percent we are losing money. I don't understand how we got there, but I understand that's where we are. To be responsible I think I have to do at least that which would give us a net gain position. We can't be losing money at a tax rate. So I'm prepared to go to 13 percent, but a two percent increase is a large amount and I'm not prepared to accept that yet. I think in the intervening two weeks that we've been here in this House we have had some extra money from the federal government. I know the Minister of Finance has told us many times that it's not a long-term solution. Well, we operate under a financial arrangement and negotiation situation where we cannot have that sort of long-term guarantee. I understand that and that needs to be fixed, but that's not to say that our situation will not be different next year. If I'm convinced after one full budget cycle that we still need to do this, then I'm prepared to do that, but I am not prepared to increase the corporate tax to 14 percent yet.
The second thing is I think we need to realize that the diamond mines which this taxation is really aimed at do contribute a lot to our economy. They pay millions in fuel taxes that goes on the road. They pay millions of dollars on fuel taxes for the fuel they use on their site. They are going to be the main contributor to the bridge project that we are building on the Mackenzie River. They do contribute millions in the way of socioeconomic agreements that they have entered into with the First Nations. I want to make sure that in whatever I do in this House that I am prudent in dealing with their corporate income as I would any other income, Madam Chair.
For all the reasons I have stated, on the procedural side and on the substantive side, I am going to hold my position at 13 percent. I have suggested that. I don't know if I'm going to get that support. I am going to introduce a motion at the appropriate time. Thank you.