Madam Speaker, we have had a lot of the truth spoken here by the Reform Party members in the last couple of hours, as usual.
I heard a most astonishing thing in the House. A day or two ago the Minister of Finance said in the House, on national television and in front of all members, that the Liberal government had not raised personal income taxes one cent since it formed the government in 1993. A lot of words went through my mind when he made that statement. The closest description to a term I cannot use in the House would probably be something like stable waste. It was such an outrageous statement. The Reform member has just pointed out in clear terms that the Pinocchio syndrome is present in so far as the Minister of Finance is concerned and other Liberals who harmonize with him on that theme.
There are two things I want to talk about today. One is the recurring scenario of the Liberal government limiting debate on this most crucial subject.
We all understand that the GST is probably the most hated tax, the most railed against tax, the most despised tax in all of our taxation system. That was clear from the minute it was brought it. I wish I could say that it was the Liberals who brought it in. That would make my day. However, I cannot do that because we know that it was the Conservatives who brought it in, under Brian Mulroney, who incidentally still has his protege sitting in the House, the hon. member for Sherbrooke, who now leads the Conservative Party.
We have all heard the hon. member for Sherbrooke say that some day Canadians will realize what a great Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was. We hope he keeps on saying that because we will keep reminding Canadians that it was the Mulroney Conservatives, and the hon. member for Sherbrooke was part of that government, that rammed the GST down the throats of Canadians without a question of whether it was fair or honest or whether the way it was done contained a hint of integrity.
In spite of all the things that Canadians hated about the GST and the Mulroney reign of terror in Parliament, the one thing that they hated the most was the way the Tories used to shut down debate on crucial issues. They used to limit the time that MPs would be permitted, on behalf of their constituents, to put forward their constituents' views.
We watched in absolute astonishment as the leader of the Tory Party did that. He did it time and time again, with the full support of the hon. member for Sherbrooke, who was part of the cabinet and who now leads the Tory Party. He continues to say that the former Prime Minister, Mr. Mulroney, was a great leader. We will remind Canadians of that.
The amazing thing is that the Liberals, when they were in opposition, used to speak in utter outrage at the way the Tory government limited debate. Time and time again Liberals rose, individually and in unison. They railed against the government for this trampling of democracy. They were so self-righteous. They called the Tory government the worst dictator that this country has ever seen. They would rail against it.
I want to make a statement that the number of times the Liberal government has brought in closure on debate since it moved from one side of the House to the other would make Brian Mulroney look like a saint when it comes to putting closure on debate in the House.
I think it is such a perfect example of hypocrisy when the Liberals spent day after day slamming the Mulroney government and now they are doing it themselves, only twice as bad. It is almost an embarrassment to sit in the House and watch democracy be trampled on. I said before that the ghosts of the great parliamentarians who once sat in this House and represented the great Liberal Party of years past and who knew about democracy must be hanging their heads in shame when they see these Liberal members trample on the sacred ground they laid here. And let us make it clear that there was a time when that party understood the fundamentals of democracy. They fought for that state of democracy only to see this Prime Minister throw it aside like yesterday's
garbage. It is almost an embarrassment to sit in the same House with a party that does that sort of nonsense.
I think we will move on now to the harmonization plan and talk about some of the comments from the provinces about this great Liberal harmonization plan.
The province of Ontario said that if the plan were implemented in Ontario it would cost Ontario consumers from $2 billion to $3 billion more a year in purchases. The Canadian people have seen a decrease in their disposable income over the last 25 years like they could never have imagined or dreamed would happen. They have seen personal income taxes raised by the government in the last three years. They have seen our national debt go to about $600 billion. They have seen our health care and our social safety net gutted, having the heart ripped out of it by the $50 billion we are paying to service the debt. And now the Liberal government has the audacity to present the harmonization plan which is even going to make what disposable income is has left appear to be even less. In fact, it will be less because a tax is a tax is a tax, no matter where it is put or where it comes from; it can only come from one place, the Canadian people.
I share my colleague's thoughts about this harmonization plan. I share the thoughts of the great Parliamentarians who have gone to the great House of Commons in the sky and who look down and see the way these Liberals are trampling on democracy.
All I can say is again, as with many bills in the House, it is truly a sad day for democracy, a sad day for the Canadian taxpayers. We will stay here and fight for the Canadian people. We will fight for their freedom and their tax freedom.