Mr. Speaker, I have nothing against the principle whereby governments have to dig into the taxpayers' pockets to maintain services. The hon. member for Nepean should realize that.
What I do have a problem with is doing it in a roundabout way that is not obvious to the people. It is a pity that she is not a member of my party, because she is criticising me for being against business, the business they are crushing under loads of paperwork.
Furthermore, not only will harmonization not help business, this harmonization proposal introduced today will have the exact same effect as the GST, except that you have changed the G for an H.
When I had my practice as a notary, people would come to see me and say: "The GST is going to put an end to the underground economy, you know. It will not be in anyone's interest to hide the GST because, in the end, they will collect over there". But look at what happened to jobs, jobs, jobs. The GST may well be the main reason for this mess. On account of the amount of paperwork and related administrative constraints, from the very beginning, people decided to work their way around the tax. When the government is unable to collect the GST at the front end, it is just too bad, as they say, but it will not be able to collect it at all. That is how, Madam, the underground economy is encouraged. In a word, I am against the underground economy and for business. And I hope you will too.