At the same time after the Liberal government embraced the policies of the previous Conservative government in terms of trade and monetary policy, I want to remind the government that one of the things that lead again to increasing debt and deficit was the implementation of the goods and
services tax at a time when we saw decreasing revenues from employment and high interest rates devastating the agricultural sectors, small business and on top of that they got the GST.
We in this party have fought long and hard for tax fairness. We believe that the goods and services tax is certainly a tax measure which has not only not worked but has increased the economic recession that we are in at this time.
Finally, on the whole issue of employment, without an employment strategy, without a clear industrial strategy we will never deal with the structural problems of debt and deficit. The fact that we see decreasing revenues is directly related to increasing unemployment statistics. Every unemployed person in this country costs the federal revenue $17,500 a year. If you take 1.5 million people unemployed that is something like $26 or $27 billion a year that we are losing in revenue because of unemployment.
It is time for parliamentarians and this government to say that Canada cannot afford unemployment. That is what we cannot afford. The social and human costs are far too great and the economic costs are devastating this country.