Mr. Speaker, we were told by the Prime Minister in August 1993 that he would honour all of his promises within two years. We were also told by the new heritage minister that if the GST were not abolished she would resign.
The GST remains in place and we are still waiting for both to keep their promises. Now the government says that harmonization will honour an election vow to scrap the GST, but a few years ago at least one member of the current cabinet saw harmonization as a barrier to replacing the GST.
The exact words of the finance minister when he was running for the Liberal leadership were:
There is some possibility that when we take power in 1992, the provinces will have entrenched the GST in their sales tax regimes. It would be extremely difficult to undo in that instance, but-I am committed to scrapping the GST-
This is from De Novo , a publication that was circulated at the Liberal leadership convention.