Mr. Speaker, everyone is well aware of what it says in the red book. As I understood it, the question that was put to the hon. member was not what the red book said on page whatever it is, but what the Liberal candidates were saying during the last election.
That is far different than what it says in the red book. They can deny that until they are blue in the face. Reality has caught up with them. They know quite well what was said by a number of them, what was said by their leader about the GST and they certainly were not talking about harmonizing. They were talking, as the hon. member from the Bloc has said, about getting rid of it. They were talking about abolishing it. They were talking about killing the GST. That is what they talked about during the election campaign and Canadians know that. They will remind these candidates of it I am sure in the next election.
What I found particularly interesting about the hon. member's intervention was his stating that somehow he feels Canadians want a hidden tax. When Canadians go to the supermarket or to the department store and are looking at a price tag on some item, they want that to be the total price. That is what I understand he said in his remarks.
I have not found those Canadians. I have found that Canadians are so incensed with the GST, they want to know how much GST they are paying. When they go to the till they want to know that the item costs X and there is so much PST and GST attached to it. They
want to know how much they are contributing to the provincial or the federal government.
I would like the hon. member to reiterate, if possible, if he honestly believes that the majority of Canadians want a hidden tax. That is not my understanding.
I have spoken to a lot of Canadians about this issue. They want to know how much tax they are contributing to the two levels of government.