Madam Speaker, I have heard the Bloc Quebecois members mention many times the necessity of creating a Canadian common market. Even in their strange world of a separate country they see the need for a common market. The European Union has been wrestling for decades to harmonize consumption taxes within its jurisdictions.
The member mentions that they need their independence because they want to create new and wonderful bridges and walls. We are spending time here on another piece of legislation, the agreement on internal trade, which attempts to reduce barriers between the provinces. Why? To support commerce. Why? Because the erection of artificial barriers is inefficient. The bottom line is that everybody pays for that because we do not get the best and most excellent in our economy.
It is in the best interests of all Canadians, Quebecers included, that we have a harmonized rate system on our consumption taxes. We are not going to tell the province of Quebec how to spend it. That is Quebec's choice. That is how we respect constitutionality under federalism. To say that we want a 25 per cent rate in the province of Newfoundland instead of 10 per cent, the bottom line is that we cannot conduct commerce in this country, we create artificial barriers to carrying on business in this country which is not in the best interests of developing a unified common market.
To answer the member's question, he cannot have it both ways. He cannot argue at one point that he wants a common market and then turn around and say they want to fix their tax rates differently from everybody else. It just will not work.