Madam Speaker, I am really baffled. It used to be said about communists that the hardest thing about being a communist was predicting the past because of revisionist history. I see this going on in the Reform Party. It is incredible.
In 1990 the hon. leader of the Reform Party said that his party would repeal the GST. In 1991 he reversed and said that it could not be repealed immediately because that would increase the deficit. In 1992 his party changed its position again, that it would reduce the GST but in stages and after the budget was balanced.
In 1994 in a minority report appended to the finance committee's report on the GST, the hon. member for Capilano-Howe Sound said: "We commend the government on its attempt to harmonize the tax with the provinces. While we support the much needed harmonization, this would be a very difficult political objective to achieve". I recall he offered his help to achieve that.
Now there is a motion that states we should scrap it, end it, abolish it. We had a Reform Party alternate budget last year but
there is no Reform alternate budget this year. There is no provision for replacing the revenue from the GST that would not come after scrapping it.
I ask the hon. member for Capilano-Howe Sound, what is the position of the Reform Party today on the GST? What will it be tomorrow, the day after and the day after that? We have been through five different versions.
Further, would the member explain what was meant in last year's minority report when he and his party said: "We believe that a broadening of the tax base would address many concerns placed before the committee. That would also require an increase of the current GST rebate". He was clearly willing to talk about a broadening of the base to get a lower rate, including food, drugs, all manner of things.