Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak on the motion which is not meant in anyway to be pejorative of the member in question, a person whom I respect greatly.
The government motion basically asks that the member for Kingston and the Islands be made a deputy speaker of the House. As I said before, while I have a lot of respect for the individual we oppose it on the grounds that it is a breach of promise the government made to the House and Canadians.
It is even more hypocritical because one member who put forth a document when in opposition recommended that two junior chair officers be from the opposition. That was a recommendation made by four prominent government members, one of whom is the hon. member nominated as the deputy chair.
We feel that in order to honour the intentions of the promise made by the government when it was in opposition, it should fulfil its obligation and make an opposition member a deputy chair. That would ensure that the Chair is non-partisan. It would increase the democracy which the government promised. That is one of the many promises which the government has failed to fulfil.
We have put forward the name of the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam to fill the position. We strongly suggest that the government take that nomination into consideration and make this well qualified individual the deputy chair and thereby live up to its promise.
That is only one of many promises on which the government has failed to deliver. I will address a number of those promises in my speech today.
This weekend I was pleased to attend the Liberal convention in Ottawa as an observer for the Reform Party. The government made repeated claims to its members and to the Canadian public that it had lived up to 78 per cent of its red book promises. That is completely untrue. The government has kept 62 of 198 of its promises. It has failed to keep 136 of its promises. I would like to cite a few of the promises as examples because I do not believe the people know that the wool has been pulled over their eyes on a wide range of issues which deeply affect them.
The first promise I would like to speak about is the GST. The government promised that it would abolish the GST. When we go to the stores what do we pay? GST. The government has had three years to do something about it, but it has done nothing.
Second, it wanted to co-ordinate tax policies between the provinces and the federal government. That was a very worthwhile initiative. It is one from which all Canadians would benefit, whether in the private sector or in the public sector. Has there been any co-ordination? No.
In three years there has not been any simplification of the tax system. The Reform Party has given to the government the elements of a flat tax proposal which would greatly simplify the system. Numerous suggestions have been made by Reform's finance people to simplify the tax system. Has the government adopted any of these measures? No.
Then there was the promise to remove interprovincial trade barriers. I find it ironic that there are more trade barriers between Quebec and Ontario or any two provinces within Canada than between Canada and the United States. There is freer trade between Canada and the United States than between the provinces. That is deplorable. How can businesses become aggressive exporters, aggressive in their areas of endeavour, when the government has created trade barriers?
Trade barriers dampen productivity, increase the costs of doing business within Canada, increase the unemployment rate and generally put a damper on the economy. What a great initiative it would have been if the government had taken the bull by the horns
and brought down interprovincial trade barriers. Unfortunately that has not happened.