Mr. Speaker, every time I heard the Prime Minister deal with the question of the
GST, he put it within the context of a government that was unable to give up $15 billion in revenue.
The Prime Minister made it very clear it was crucial to sit down with the provinces and come up with a simplified system that would work. What the Prime Minister said was what this government did.
It put in place a House of Commons finance committee that went across the country for two and one-half years. It looked at 20 alternatives. At the end of the piece those who were creating jobs, the small and medium size business community, said to us: "We would like to see a harmonized tax. We want to see one tax auditor, one set of tax forms".
This government wants to create jobs, unlike the myth on the other side. Basically that is what the small and medium sized business community did and gave us a tax system that is going to work.