Mr. Speaker, I wish to tell Quebecers and Canadians that there are three good reasons why Bill C-70 ought not to be passed by the House of Commons.
The first, and perhaps the most serious, is that it sends a very ambiguous message to Canadians and Quebecers about what this government's word is worth. During the last campaign, they were saying that they were going to scrap the GST, that it would no longer exist, that they would make it disappear. Once in power, they began to hum and haw and to mark time, but in the end they did not respect their contract with the voters.
Running for office is like signing a contract with each voter, stating what one commits to doing, what one commits to defending, and, if elected, one will respect that contract. There is a very ambiguous, and very negative, message being sent to all those who might think of getting into politics: this government says one thing while campaigning to get elected, and does another once in power. It did the same thing with job creation and unemployment insurance. This is totally unacceptable, and very bad for democracy.
In the next election campaign, when the Liberal candidates come knocking on the doors of Quebecers, voters will be entitled to ask whether what is set out in their platform is true, if their actions will match their words, if all their commitments are merely a smoke screen to win votes so they can do as they please as soon as the election is over. The Liberals will have a real problem relating to this question of a systematic lack of respect for the promises they have made on major issues.
The second element, and this is particularly true for Quebecers, is the frustration that is felt when we see one billion dollars in compensation-no one on the other side of the House has questioned the accuracy of this figure-given to three Maritime provinces for harmonizing the GST.
Harmonization is all very well, but I think we should realize that this is a repeat of an age-old practice of Canadian federalism, which is to try and cure the ills of one region in Canada at the expense of the other regions, in an attempt to buy political peace. After introducing employment insurance reform that penalizes the maritimes and eastern Quebec to a considerable degree, a form of compensation has been found, a kind of pacifier for the people of the maritimes. They are offered compensation for harmonizing the GST.
However, Quebec, which proceeded with this harmonization several years ago, did not receive any compensation at all. Quebec did its job and made the system work. All public servants who administer the GST are with the Department of Revenue in Quebec City, and they remit the amounts to Ottawa. It all works without any compensation. Here again, we see the double standard we have seen so often in the history of Canadian federalism.
This has some major economic impacts. We use this, for instance, in the new riding of Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup-Témiscouata-Les Basques, where the Témiscouata area borders on New Brunswick. This is one of many measures we are evaluating to find out how federal monies get to New Brunswick and how they get to Quebec, and whether these two parts of Canada are being treated equally. The study we are doing now focuses on all grants and assistance programs currently available.
We have here a clear example of a situation that may lead to unfair competition between two regions. One government will receive funding to harmonize the tax, while the other did not. There will necessarily be additional costs for the Quebec government. Products from New Brunswick will be more attractive because of the federal government's compensation, which was not given to the Government of Quebec. There is an injustice here that warrants our criticism.
In its concern for tarting up the transformation of the GST, the federal government was prepared to pay any price for peace. The people of the maritimes won the jackpot. The people of Quebec, however, did not come begging, saw no need for compensation and harmonized the taxes at no cost to the government. Western Canada did not harmonize.
The situation has therefore created several Canadas. It does not work. It proves that, when the federal system is allowed to run on its own, this is the sort of monster we end up with. There will be two different types of taxation in two bordering provinces: in the maritimes, the taxation system is subsidized by the federal government; in Quebec, the federal government did not subsidize harmonization. Double standards are still unacceptable.
I would like to take the few minutes I have left to point out that this bill represents what I would call a partial win for the Bloc Quebecois. Those members who represented the Bloc Quebecois before the 1993 election had systematically made representations to ensure that the GST would not apply to books.
After all the representations that have been made, the bill before us today provides that books bought by groups involved in literacy programs, libraries and similar organizations will be tax free. Because of the major cultural impact books have on our society, the Bloc Quebecois feels that all books should be free of tax.
I think we should keep up the fight because, as we can see, this would benefit not only Quebec but all of Canada. English Canadian culture certainly needs help in holding its own against American culture. Because markets are permeable and the fact that the same language is used in English Canada and in the U.S., books are among the main tools used to spread culture. This would have been an opportunity to give books published in Canada an edge, by not subjecting them to tax. Any way you look at it, the propagation of knowledge benefits society as a whole. But this is not reflected in the bill.
I think the government could show its good will by making all books tax-free. I think all Quebecers and Canadians would gain from it. This is a measure that will probably be discussed in the next election campaign. At that time, we will have to make sure that each party will honour its commitments.
This Liberal government will certainly have a major credibility problem during the election campaign, primarily because of issues such as the GST, employment insurance and the promise to create jobs. The current unemployment rate, which remains above 10 per cent, is the highest in a number of years. This figure includes people who are actually looking for work, but not those who have given up because they were unable to find jobs.
There is a shameless waste of human resources in our society. Changing this situation must be our governments' top priority. We have no idea what kind of commitments this government will make the next time. What is more important though is whether or not it will fulfil these commitments.
If the past is any indication of the future, it is not encouraging for Canadian voters, because each time they will have to decide whether or not to believe in a Liberal government commitment, they will remember that the Liberals did not do what they had pledged to do with the GST, and with employment insurance, as they simply implemented the reform prepared by the Conservatives.
As for employment itself, again the commitments made were not fulfilled. The morning after the election, the Liberal government set out to tackle the deficit. This was fine, but in the process it overlooked another obligation, which is to ensure that our society's human potential is being used. In this sense, the bill before us is disappointing. It perpetuates an inequity in the Canadian federal system, which is the fact that different parts of the country are treated differently.
In western Canada, the government is subsidizing an airline company that has trouble making profits because of a major management problem, while in Atlantic Canada it gives a compensation of $1 billion to harmonize the GST. In the middle, there is Quebec, which made real efforts to harmonize its tax, but which is not getting the benefits that other provinces are receiving.
When will fairness prevail? I do not believe the solution to this problem lies in the current federal system. In any case, I am asking Quebec and Canadian voters to be very demanding, during the next election campaign, regarding the commitments that will be made by Liberal candidates.
The evidence is before us: This government had pledged to eliminate the GST, but instead it comes up with cosmetic changes. The GST is still here and the commitment made during the election campaign was not fulfilled. This is why I feel the House should reject this bill.