Mr. Speaker, I will try again. During an interview, the Minister of Finance clearly confirmed the importance of a flourishing underground economy and I quote: "The Minister of Finance believes what his officials have been saying all along, which is that the black market accounts for 5 per cent of the economy. The Minister of Finance believes that it is a lot higher than that".
Does the minister recognize that the growth of the underground economy, confirmed by a drop in GST revenues during the first half of the year as compared to last year at the same time, is due to the recent increase of the tax burden and the inequities of an outdated taxation system that an increasing number of Canadians are trying to evade?