Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the report stage debate on Bill C-70. We are focusing on the harmonization of the provincial sales taxes and the GST in most of the Atlantic provinces.
It is important at this time, in view of some of the comments we are hearing from the other side, to review the big picture again. If we step back we can understand why harmonization of the GST and the provincial sales taxes where they exist is a laudable and extremely important objective.
It was a very interesting experience for me as a member of the Standing Committee on Finance to take part in the many weeks of
study and hearings on options and alternatives to replace the GST. This was in the spring of 1994.
The finance committee is an all-party committee. It listened to Canadians from coast to coast, here in Ottawa and in each of the provinces. They were asked some tough questions and in all cases they gave very honest and frank responses to the challenge of what was the best alternative to the GST.
Members of the other parties know that over 20 alternatives to the GST were studied. The vast weight of the evidence provided by the witnesses indicated that there was no other alternative that could be better than harmonizing the provincial sales taxes with the federal GST. The weight of that evidence was so great that even in the provincial campaign of 1995, the then leader of the Ontario PC party, now premier, Premier Harris, indicated his strong support for harmonizing in Ontario the PST and GST. The story we hear from Ontario now is a little different.
I do not want to impute motives, but the fact is I agree with its campaign promise that harmonizing the PST and GST in Ontario would have many benefits for small, medium and big businesses, for consumers and for provincial and federal governments that I do not know why we are hearing such a fuss from the opposition.
Among the many things we heard in the testimony, much had to do with red tape. We all hear from taxpayers and businesses that there is too much government red tape at all levels. Therefore, the fact that the government has taken the initiative to tackle a challenging problem, the harmonization of these two levels of sales taxes, is something for which all Canadians will be grateful. Certainly the witnesses we heard from at the finance committee told us in no uncertain terms that it was the goal to aim for.
There was no question that there were going to be some challenges along the way. As my colleague from Carleton-Charlotte reminds me, when that finance committee, ably led by the MP for Willowdale, reported, the Reform Party was on record as supporting the notion of harmonizing the provincial sales taxes and GST.