Mr. Speaker, it is with considerable pleasure that I rise to take my turn in the debate on Bill C-70, which concerns various amendments to legislation pertaining to the goods and services tax in Canada, commonly known as the GST.
This bill is the recognition in fact of action taken by the current federal government to harmonize the GST with the provincial sales tax in three maritime provinces, with the combined tax becoming the HST or harmonized sales tax. The HST does not apply to the purchase of books anywhere in Canada by public corporations, such as public libraries, schools, colleges and universities. All organizations involved in literacy programs are also now exempt under this bill from paying the GST on books.
We have many reservations about this bill. About its form, to start with. This is, by the way, a very technical bill of some 300 pages in length. It was delivered to the official opposition late yesterday afternoon. Opposition members therefore had little time to properly prepare criticism, which we had hoped would be more articulate and thorough, because of the lack of time and the size of the document.
It is at once intriguing and distressing, because it must be remembered that the government's position on this is not clear. The history of the debate on the GST is not a high point in the history of the Liberal Party of Canada.
While very important promises to kill the GST were made by the Liberal Party in its red book, this does not even come close. This is about harmonization, with the maritimes in this case.
In an area where the government party does not keep its promises, we would have expected them to at least have an open and truly honourable debate on this issue, after giving the opposition parties more time so we could have been better prepared than we are now.
The government had made a clear, simple and specific commitment, but so far it has not kept its promises, quite the contrary. On an individual level, this has been illustrated by the behaviour of the Deputy Prime Minister and member for Hamilton East, and the promises she made, hopefully in good faith. Unless they were made in good faith and with intellectual honesty, this will confirm every preconceived idea the people of this country have about politicians not weighing their words.
That is what the Liberal candidate for Hamilton East did at the time, when stating that she would resign if the GST was not abolished. When the GST was not abolished, she had to resign,
which she did, not out of intellectual honesty, but under pressure she could not resist. She resigned for form's sake. The very next day, the Prime Minister called a by-election in her riding and she was re-elected with, fortunately, a clear warning from the people that she must not play that little game again.
During a difficult time of fiscal restraint, this little game has cost Canadian taxpayers $500,000, just because one person did not keep her word, but pretended to, in order to save face at public expense.
Let me quote the hon. member. Not too long ago, on March 11, 1996, the Globe and Mail reported something she had said as a candidate:
"I have already said personally and very directly that if the GST is not abolished, I will resign".
She did resign, but it was for appearances' sake, a symbolic resignation. She did not resign as a matter of principle, saying: "Since the government to which I belong did not do this, I would be ashamed to be a part of it". No, she resigned for appearaances' sake, because she could not withstand the pressure brought to bear on her. Then, taxpayers had to pay for the intellectual irresponsibility displayed regarding this issue.
You will agree that the Prime Minister does not fare much better. The Prime Minister said, with typical clarity and transparency, using carefully chosen words: "We will scrap the GST". As you know, to scrap means to get rid of something. The yard is now full of scrap. The Prime Minister, in his great wisdom, and also with indignation and all the sincerity that he could display, said time and again, in reference to the Liberals' red book: "We will scrap the GST".
What is the situation now? The Prime Minister cannot claim he is unable to take action. After all, he is in office, he is the Prime Minister. We are not quoting some backbencher, we are quoting the Prime Minister, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, who came into office on October 25, 1993, following an election campaign that included written and oral commitments, including this one, which could not be any clearer: "We will scrap the GST". This promise is not worth much more than this other slogan of the time: "jobs, jobs, jobs". What happened to that other commitment? "We will scrap the GST" and "jobs, jobs, jobs" are pretty well on a par. People say just about anything they want, including the Liberal candidates who ran in the ridings of Hamilton East and Saint-Maurice.
They say anything that comes to mind, that they will resign or that they will scrap the GST. The Prime Minister said as clearly as could be that he disagreed with this tax, when he said: "We hate the GST and we will kill it". This is an unequivocal statement. It does not leave much room for interpretation. The Prime Minister did not make many clear and specific commitments during his career, but he did promise to get rid of the GST.
Today, we can see what is happening on this issue. The government no longer mentions it, except to try to harmonize that tax. We saw what the Liberals accomplished in three maritime provinces. A harmonization process did take place. It was explained that, before this harmonization, provincial and federal taxes amounted to 19 per cent of the consumer price. An agreement was reached to lower this 19 per cent to 15 per cent.
The shortfall was made up in two ways. First, there was the immediate payment of approximately one billion dollars to these three maritime provinces, using money from the taxes paid by the other seven provinces. This money did not just drop out of the sky. It came from the other provinces. And the way the accounts are figured out in Canada, almost $250 million of this came from Quebec taxpayers.
That is harmonization for you. That is Canada's idea of distributing the wealth fairly. We are used to this game, but we will not put up with it, and it is one of many reasons why Quebecers are giving more and more thought to whether they want to remain in this country and why they came within a hair of deciding to leave on October 30, 1995. It must be remembered, and there is no reason not to say it, that on that day 60 per cent of francophones made a decision to leave Canada, and we will keep pointing this out.
Here we have a wonderful example of what it means to belong to Canada and what it costs. As we see it, staying with federalism is costing the Quebec economy. Every year, we come up short, unless you factor in, as the federal government does, what we receive in unemployment insurance and social assistance. Unless we boast that Quebec is poorer than the other provinces. And this is the diabolical logic the federalists are stuck with when they try to sell federalism in Quebec.
It therefore looks like the people, the governments of the three maritime provinces in question were, to put it bluntly, bought, given one billion dollars in exchange for agreeing to harmonize the tax, as it were.
The second way of making up the shortfall of 4 per cent mentioned earlier, the 19 per cent that turned into 15 per cent in return for one billion up front, is that they said that from now on, transfer payments would be the way to ensure that these three maritime provinces were not penalized. In other words, year after year, almost automatically, the maritime provinces, through equalization payments, will be compensated for this loss of 4 per cent, a practice we condemn.
This is one of the aspects that we feel shows a great lack of regard for other Canadians and other provinces. Another aspect, which is more likely to affect consumers, is the decision that was made as part of this harmonization with the maritime provinces to put taxes which are now visible under wraps once more, taxes that
consumers could see so they could figure, when they paid for a meal or for an item of clothing, how much they were paying in federal taxes. At the time that was something new, but now it seems that harmonization will again put this tax under wraps.
This is probably typical of the way the government runs the country, because when it is not actually hiding something, it is at least trying to.
This is a partial harmonization because it also harmonizes a lack of transparency. The public will be even less aware of how much it pays for services it receives from the federal government. This does not augur well.
At a time when there is so much talk about proper management of public moneys, when all consumers are being asked to do more and more in this respect, I think it is rather insulting that the government should go ahead and hide the GST, although the Liberals, and this was part of the abolition scenario, had made a clear commitment to keep a visible GST.
A typical example is what happened to the report of the finance committee where, in 1994, the Liberal majority said it would be improper to hide from Canadians the taxes they were paying to their governments and that creating a hidden tax would make it difficult for them to make the government accountable for the way these taxes were collected and, to a lesser extent, how public moneys were spent.
In fact, in a dissenting report by the Liberal minority in 1989, under the Conservatives, the Liberals said that if the GST was hidden in the sales price, it would be much easier for the government to increase it later on.
When the Liberal government decides to hide the GST, it knows very well what it is doing. It cannot plead ignorance, and it is reversing the positions it formerly held on the issue and doing so publicly.
In concluding, I still think we have reason to be pleased that some representations made by the Bloc Quebecois were partially included, as regards the GST on books. As was pointed out earlier, from now on all public institutions involved in education and literacy training-in culture as well, when we include public libraries, schools, universities, and community colleges-will all be able to buy books without paying the GST. We are pleased because otherwise, it would mean putting a tax on knowledge, research and intellectual curiosity.
We are pleased but we deplore the fact that this exemption on books is not extended to all taxpayers who buy books in this country but reserved only for public institutions.