Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. He raises some valid points and concerns. It is no small secret that the Canadian business community is very concerned about the goods and services tax. It was concerned about it when it was announced and of course it still is. However, that never did the government or the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister say that we did not need the revenue. In its previous form as the manufacturers' sales tax in 1984 of 9 per cent and then moving up, I believe, in 1992-93 to about 13 per cent or 14 per cent, prior to being changed to the GST, the Government of Canada has been dependent on those revenues and will continue to need them.
The difficulty is the structure and the nature of the tax. The member is quite correct when he states that the imposition of the GST had an inflationary effect and stalled purchases. For example, someone may want to build a home in the riding of Wild Rose or Provencher. That person would order a $100,000 of materials and then there would be labour involved. When taking that lumber out of the yard that person would be stopped at the gate and charged another $7,000. That, of course, is going to kill investment and purchases. I think people have been painfully aware of that.
The government has made it quite clear, particularly leading up to the next budget that we will be addressing the matter. The parliamentary secretary has spoken about the GST only in the last couple of days and mentioned that we are equally concerned about it on this side of the House.
I ask the hon. member from Alberta to speak to his provincial counterparts and ask them to join with the other provinces and with the Government of Canada to work out some reasonable solutions to deal with a harmonized tax which will be in the best interests of all Canadians and, therefore, the Canadian economy.