Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak once again to Bill C-70.
First I must decry the fact that the government has moved time allocation, a form of closure, on this piece of legislation. I need to point out that since the fall session began, the government has pushed through precisely nine bills and here we are ramming
through important pieces of legislation in the last week. That is completely unacceptable.
I have to speak to some of the accusations made by the member for Gander-Grand Falls. I would simply say that if he was not completely misleading the Canadian public, he certainly was quoting hon. members out of context and I must set the record straight.
The hon. member from Gander was saying that the Reform Party wanted to raise taxes. Let me make it very clear that our party will provide the average family of four in this country with a $2,000 tax break by the year 2000, $15 billion in tax relief for Canadians. That is part of our fresh start platform.
The hon. member also spoke about the government's record of low interest rates. I have to address that. The reason we have low interest rates is that this country's economy has been so soft. That is why we have had low interest rates.
Noticeably the member did not speak about unemployment. I would think someone from Newfoundland must address unemployment. In 1995 the G-7 said that Canada had the worst record when it came to unemployment in the G-7. Out of all seven nations Canada had the worst. Why would a member from Newfoundland not address something like unemployment? That is ridiculous. Obviously the government's record is so bad that the hon. member could not bear to raise the issue of unemployment.
By the way, the Reform plan would take 1.2 million low income Canadians completely off the tax roles. I want to make that clear. Somehow the member for Gander-Grand Falls left people with the impression that we were going to tax low income Canadians more. We are going to take 1.2 million low income Canadians off the tax rolls. These are people whom the Liberals are currently taxing, including the member for Gander-Grand Falls who has voted in favour of every budget the government has brought in.
The member for Gander-Grand Falls apparently is no friend of the unemployed. He is no friend of working Canadians who are being taxed to the hilt. I think the member for Gander-Grand Falls has a lot of explaining to do to his constituents.
Specifically on Bill C-70, we need to remind people that this bill came about because of a broken promise, a very sorry beginning for this legislation. Going back to before the last election, members on that side of the House said: "The GST is completely unacceptable. It is terrible. We will rip it out if we become government".
The member from Gander spoke of the finance minister. The finance minister when he was in opposition said that the GST was terrible and that they did not want to have anything to do with it. The Prime Minister has been in this place on and off since 1963, 33 years. You do not even get that much for murder in this country but he has been here that long. He sat here knowing very well that there was a possibility the Liberals could form the government and he said: "We do not want to have anything to do with the GST".
What happened on October 18, 1993? The current Deputy Prime Minister said on national television in a CBC town hall meeting that if the GST was not gone, she would resign. She led everyone to believe that the Liberal government would get rid of the GST. We know that individual MPs campaigned on the promise to get rid of the GST.
What did the Liberals do? Did they get rid of the GST? The record is very clear. The government did not get rid of the GST. Instead because it had no takers for its harmonization proposal, and it was desperate to come up with a reason or a justification for breaking its promise, it ran out to the Atlantic premiers with $1 billion and said: "Please come on board so we can say that we fulfilled our promise in some way, shape or form".
A billion dollars. And what was the result? Now a tax regime is being established in Atlantic Canada that is going to visit all kinds of sorrows on the people of Atlantic Canada. Beyond that, it creates all kinds of other problems. It is extremely divisive. When one area of the country is rewarded with a $1 billion compensation package but other areas are told that they are on their own, what happens? We get division.
We get problems with national unity obviously. That is the government's whole approach to the issue of unity: divide and conquer, split people apart. The government has done it from day one and continues to do it. Lately it is talking about distinct society again. I cannot believe it, but it is part of its whole approach.
What does this harmonized sales tax do specifically in Atlantic Canada? The government claims it will create jobs but the facts simply do not bear that out. We know already that stores are closing in Atlantic Canada because they cannot afford to implement all the necessary changes associated with bringing the harmonized sales tax to Atlantic Canada.
Greenberg stores is based in Quebec but has stores throughout Atlantic Canada. It is closing stores because it cannot bear the start-up cost of this new harmonized sales tax. Seventy-nine jobs are already disappearing in New Brunswick. It just escapes me that we are not hearing from New Brunswick MPs. They are not standing up and saying: "We have to do something to protect these jobs". Somehow the members from New Brunswick are strangely
silent. Where are they? Why are they not standing up for their constituents?
If something like that were happening in my riding or anywhere in Alberta where all those Reform MPs are, or in British Columbia or any Reform constituency I would like to think that those Reformers would stand up even to their own leader and government and say: "This is unacceptable. We will not put up with this. We have received clear direction from our constituents and they do not want us to vote in favour of this legislation". But the Liberals are like sheep. They are completely quiet. They have been cowed by the Prime Minister and the power of that office, which is ridiculous. It is absolutely counter to democracy.
The hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls spoke about democracy. He is a member who has spoken out in the past and has been relegated to the very end of the row, almost out the door. He can stand up and try to revive his flagging career all he wants knowing that the minister of fisheries may not be long for cabinet. However at some point he apparently wronged the Prime Minister in some way and now he has been relegated to being almost out the door and probably has no chance of getting anywhere which is unfortunate. That is how this government deals with people who do not toe the line.
Let me speak about some things that will happen in Atlantic Canada as a result of Bill C-70. We have received letters from the Retail Council of Canada, as have hon. members across the way. It has warned about the tax in pricing aspect of Bill C-70, about how it will hurt many large retailers. It has talked about the millions of dollars it will cost. In a very up front manner it said that those costs will be passed on to the consumers in Atlantic Canada.
Consumers will bear the cost of the deal that is being implemented in Atlantic Canada because the government was so desperate to come up with some kind of rationalization for not fulfilling its GST promise. Atlantic Canada has to pay for the government's broken promise. Atlantic Canadians have to pay literally out of their own pockets for this broken promise. But that is not all. Right now we are only talking about the large chains. What about the small businesses?
Greenberg stores is not a large company and it is laying off 79 people with another 71 possibly going. The other day I heard a story about a Halifax businessman who sells magazines. Approximately 8,500 journals come into his store on a weekly or monthly basis. Because of this legislation he will have to change the price on every one of those magazines. I do not care how hard a person works, that cannot possibly be done every week.
Does the government care about all these common sense objections to this deal? Again the government members are strangely silent. Where are the members from Atlantic Canada? Where is the member for Halifax who sits in this place and so often speaks up? She is strangely silent. Not a word. Why are they not standing up for their constituents? Why are they not standing up when they know it will cost jobs, when it means higher costs for consumers? I would think that is a basic responsibility of any member of Parliament.
What about the defence minister? He represents a riding in which one of the Greenberg stores closed. Should he not be on his feet as a cabinet minister? Should he not be defending his own people?
I cannot believe they are allowing this to be pushed through on closure without so much as saying this is wrong, we have to at least fix some of the details. They are silent.
Other bodies have spoken of the problems this will cause in Atlantic Canada as well. The Real Estate Association of Canada talks about a $4,000 increase in the cost of a new house in Atlantic Canada. What is the government doing?
There has been no initiative from the government coming forward and saying "we are going to deal with that, we will fix it". It is going to let the people of Atlantic Canada bear a $4,000 increase in the cost of a new House simply because it had to rush through that deal to try to save the Deputy Prime Minister. That is unacceptable.
If you make a mistake, as the government, if you break a promise, why do you not acknowledge that you have broken a promise, throw yourself at the mercy of the electorate and take your medicine? To try to somehow cover it up and then make people in Atlantic Canada, the most vulnerable economy in the country, pay for it is cruel. I do not know how else to put it.
As we near the end of this debate, sadly the government has pushed through closure. I urge hon. members across the way to somehow screw up the courage to stand and defend their own constituents. Sixteen thousand people in New Brunswick alone have signed one petition in opposition to this legislation.
If hon. members across the way will not listen to me and my colleagues in the Reform Party, perhaps they can somehow find it in their hearts to listen to their own constituents. That is the least the people of Atlantic Canada can expect from their MPs.