House of Commons Hansard #37 of the 35th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was discrimination.
Michel Gauthier BlocLeader of the Opposition
Mr. Speaker, in response to the speeches by all the members of this House, as well as public pressures, the Deputy Prime Minister has finally stepped down. She had no other choice, moreover, since she had made a public commitment to quit if the GST was not abolished.
Will the Prime Minister admit that this resignation is evidence that it was not only the Deputy Prime Minister who did not keep her word concerning the GST, but the Liberal government as a whole, and he himself?
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, Ms. Copps, who resigned earlier today-and I must express my admiration for her in this connection-had made a personal commitment. At her press conference, she indicated clearly that the government was respecting the commitments it had made in the red book, on page 20 in French and page 22 in English, that she herself had made an additional commitment, and that now her credibility was being criticized or questioned by the public.
In response to the incessant attacks against her, she has decided to rely on the judgment of the voters of Hamilton East, and I am convinced that, after the June 17 byelection, she will be back with the support of the people of Hamilton East.
She had made a personal commitment to which she has been faithful. For this lady, who has so well served the province of Ontario, first as an MPP and then as an opposition MP and later a minister and Deputy Prime Minister in this House, an attack on her integrity was unacceptable. She is putting her fate in the hands of the voters. They have always had enormous confidence in Ms. Copps, as do we on this side of the House.
Michel Gauthier BlocLeader of the Opposition
Mr. Speaker, last week, Number Three in the government, that is the Minister of Finance, admitted his error and apologized for it. Number Two has just done the same, and has resigned.
Does the Prime Minister realize that now there is just Number One left, who has not admitted, nor is he capable of admitting, to the Canadian people that he has not respected his commitments?
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, some ten times or so I have read out here in the House the Liberal Party's commitment, made at the time of the election, namely that we were going to replace the GST by a form of taxation that would be harmonized with the provinces, that would generate the same level of revenue as the GST did in the past, that there would be a single administration to implement it, that there would be only one group of auditors bothering businessmen, etc.
We have begun the process of having a national tax harmonized with the provinces. We regret not having been able to do so across the board immediately, but we have had the co-operation of four provinces so far, and are counting on the others, in order to have a single tax. According to many of the opposition members, we are the only country in the world to have two competing levels of sales tax.
Michel Gauthier BlocLeader of the Opposition
Mr. Speaker, to clarify things for the Prime Minister and for anyone else, the Minister of Finance had promised to abolish the GST. He said "We did not do so, and I apologize for that, it was a bad thing to do". The Deputy Prime Minister had said "We are going to scrap the GST or I will quit". Acknowledging her commitment, she has resigned. As for the Prime Minister, he had said "We are going to scrap the GST". So what is he going to do now?
Paul Martin LiberalMinister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, would the Leader of the Opposition kindly tell us, is he in favour of harmonizing the sales tax, or is he not? Would the Leader of the Opposition kindly tell us, is he in favour of our harmonizing the tax with the province of Quebec? Is he in favour of doing what his former leader, Lucien Bouchard, said was necessary, creating a harmonized tax?
Paul Martin Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
Is he in favour of doing what the Quebec Minister of Finance has said, that if we wanted a harmonized tax-
Goods And Services TaxOral Question Period
The Speaker
Order. The Minister of Finance has the floor.
Paul Martin Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition wants to speak of the Prime Minister, if the Leader of the Opposition wants to speak of the government, let him look at what has been done, let him look at how the government headed by this Prime Minister has succeeded in tidying up public finances, despite the Bloc Quebecois' declarations to the contrary, a Prime Minister who has successfully protected our social programs, despite the Reform Party's objections-
Gilles Duceppe Bloc Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Mr. Speaker, even if the Minister of Finance shouts himself hoarse issuing all kinds of challenges, he will not make us forget that we heard him admit on television he made an honest mistake. Everyone heard him.
I understand why the Prime Minister had him responding to the third question: because the Minister of Finance has far more credibility than he does as a result of admitting he made a mistake.
Gilles Duceppe Bloc Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister usually-although we have not seen him do it today-brandishes the red book to try to confirm his promise with respect to the GST.
Will he finally realize that millions of people heard him say on television and in all other forums that he would scrap the GST? When will he admit that he has not kept his promise, as his Minister of Finance and his Deputy Prime Minister have done? Number Two and Number Three on either side of him have both realized this; only the one in the middle has not.
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago, the Deputy Prime Minister stated that she was totally satisfied the government had kept its word, as mentioned in the red book on page 20 in French and 22 in English.
We have kept our campaign promise of a new tax generating equivalent revenues. If the hon. member refuses to believe what is written, there is not much I can do about it. We campaigned on this. That is what we have been saying for weeks, and the Minister of Finance will work on a new national sales tax with the co-operation of all provincial governments.
Furthermore, an all-party committee of this House, which spent one year studying the problem, recommended the strategy used by the Minister of Finance to honour the commitment in the red book.
Gilles Duceppe Bloc Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Mr. Speaker, we, too, have read his red book more than once. However, when one compares what is written in the red book with what his government has just done, one can see that, even then, the government has not kept its word since, on page 20 in the French version of the red book, the Liberal Party promises, and I quote: "Nous substituerons-".
If the Prime Minister consulted a dictionary from time to time or watched the evening news on Radio-Canada before going to bed, he might understand the meaning of this French word. "Substituer" means "to replace", to replace the GST with something else. Two weeks ago, the Liberal government confirmed that the GST would be maintained. All it did was give it a different acronym.
Will the Prime Minister admit, as his Minister of Finance and his former Deputy Prime Minister did, that he has laughed at the people and broken his promise, as he has done for his entire political career on all kinds of issues?
Paul Martin LiberalMinister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, in Quebec and in the other provinces with which an agreement was reached, there will now be a single sales tax instead of two, a single tax collector instead of two, a single tax base instead of two.
Let us be very clear. Is the hon. member telling us that we should not rationalize taxes with Quebec? Is the hon. member completely out of step with the Quebec government? I think he should call the head office so they can tell him they support what we did.
Deborah Grey Reform Beaver River, AB
Mr. Speaker, although under great public pressure, the former Deputy Prime Minister has done the right thing and resigned her seat in the House of Commons.
Deborah Grey Reform Beaver River, AB
She made a promise and is now keeping that promise.
The Liberals promised to abolish, scrap and kill the GST and broke that promise. Now even Sheila Copps realizes that the government cannot continue to justify the unjustifiable.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Will he now finally admit that his government has broken its election promise to abolish, scrap and kill the GST?
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, in talking about integrity, I would like to mention the flip-flop by the hon. member within a few hours and the fact that his party
totally ignored the same statement by the member for Nanaimo-Cowichan for two years before reluctantly asking him to change what he said.
I do not think we have any lessons to learn from that party about anything in politics, especially after hearing words like that which are completely unacceptable in a modern society like Canada where tolerance is the modus vivendi of the whole nation.
I have always said that the red book is clear. We said we would replace the GST with a national harmonized sales tax with the provincial governments. So far we have done this with four provinces. With the help of the provincial governments it will be done with the rest of them. It is the red book commitment and the promise we have kept.
