NEWS RELEASE  

July 31, 1996    For Immediate Release 

GOVERNMENT WASTE AND TAXATION DRAINING LIFE-BLOOD OUT OF ECONOMY  

"Trickle of red-ink leading to flood of government debt," reports Breitkreuz.  

Ottawa - Today, Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, made available copies of Reform's fourth "Waste Report" prepared by his colleague, John Williams, Reform MP for St. Albert in Alberta. "The government drained almost $500 million of your tax dollars out of Canada to international organizations last year," said Breitkreuz.

When you read this "Waste Report", you just have to ask WHY?:  

• Why did the Liberals give over $16 million to Consultation Group International in Washington? 
• Why did the Liberals give $1.5 million to the Korean Energy Development Organization? 
• Why did the Liberals give $250,000 to Women's World Banking in New York? 
• Why did the Liberals give $171,250 to the Latin American Institute for Transnational Studies? 
• Why did the Liberals give $160,000 to Structural Behaviour Engineering in Phoenix, Arizona? 
• Why did the Liberals give $111,753 to the Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators? 
• Why did the Liberals give $100,760 to study "Social Influences on the Growth of Video Games?" 
• Why did the Liberals give $ 39,000 to study "German Composers in the Nazi era?" 
• Why did the Liberals give $ 34,131 to study "Representation of Lesbians in French Literature?" 
• Why did the Liberals give $ 97,000 to study "Idolatry and religious practice in colonial Peru?" 
• and so on, and so on, and so on 

"In the spring, I sent The People's Tax Form to every household in the Yorkton-Melville constituency. This form allowed voters to decide how the government should and should not spend their tax dollars. Don't people have the right to determine how their tax money is spent?" asked Breitkreuz. "Why do Canadians simply have to pay without having a say in what they get in return? Three of the top five government programs most "strongly opposed" by my constituents included funding to special interest groups (#2), foreign aid (#4) and multiculturalism (#5). Based on these responses, I'm sure they also oppose wasteful government spending in other countries."  

"If the government is ever going to get its spending under control, it has to look at every single dollar it spends. But the attitude of this government is, 'It's only a few thousand here or a million or two there -- don't worry.' The trouble is it's adding up to millions and billions of wasted tax dollars. We're still going into debt at the rate of about $90 million a day. This is caused by all the wasteful trickles of useless spending coming together into a flood of red ink. Government overspending and taxation is draining the lifeblood out of the economy," concluded Breitkreuz.  

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Note: Today our National Debt is $591.5 billion and growing at a rate of $3.73 million/hour 

For your own copy of "The Waste Report" please call: 

Yorkton: (306) 782-3309 

Ottawa: (613) 992-4394