Small business people are struggling to handle all the complex accounting. Yet one year later, no plan, no proposal. The finance minister floated out the idea of a national 12 per cent sales tax. I can assure the Minister of Finance that a flat 12 per cent national sales tax will not fly in my home province of Alberta.
Canadians were promised good government and that Ottawa would hold the separatists at bay through their good government. We have 53 of them sitting here and through their lack of leadership we now have a bunch sitting in Quebec City which is bent on taking Quebec out of this federation. It is a national tragedy that through their lack of leadership and lack of direction they have allowed that to happen. If they had kept the separatists out of the provincial government in Quebec this country would be a lot better off today. We found out through question period in the last few weeks that they were caught flat footed and did not even get the documents and agreements all signed properly. Therefore the separatists were able to make political hay out of their lack of ensuring that paper work was done and getting an agreement signed on Collège Lac-St-Jean.
They promised that parliamentary democracy would be revived and we would have open government. Yet we find that the whip is applied as soon as one person wants to step out of line. Oh, no, that is not allowed. So much for their great statements on revived and open government.
They did promise us that there would be action on the deficit and the debt. By the admission of the Minister of Finance when he brought down his first budget, within three years he will add $100 billion more to our debt. He has not even told us or given us any idea when he will even attempt to get to a balanced budget.