Mr. Speaker, the government was elected on the strength of a solemn commitment to abolish the GST. The Prime Minister said during the electoral campaign, "We are going to scrap the GST". The Deputy Prime Minister said, "If the GST is not abolished, I will resign". On May 2, 1994, the Prime Minister again said, "We hate this tax and we will get rid of it".
The Liberals made a number of solemn promises to eliminate the GST. Yesterday, however, not only did the Minister of Finance announce that the GST was being kept, he went on to say that we were going to pay $1 billion to extend it to the Maritimes.
How does the Prime Minister justify such a spectacular about-face?