Mr. Speaker, I am here today to debate the Group No. 1 amendments to the GST-2 bill, the so-called harmonization bill.
Really we should not be here today debating this piece of legislation. I remember so clearly during the election campaign one Liberal after another, including the Prime Minister, state they would get rid of the GST, they would abolish the GST, kill the GST.
I remember listening and thinking it is going to be interesting to be there in the House of Commons to see how they will do that.
They decided after they got into government that they could not do it. Therefore to try to deceive Canadians they presented this harmonization bill saying "we have done what we have promised, we got rid of the GST as we promised". Of course, it will not fool many Canadians.
We have the GST. Now what we have is one GST for three provinces, the so-called harmonized GST-2. Then we have the old GST, the one brought in by the Conservatives, the one that was going to be killed by this government in the rest of Canada.
This promise made during the election campaign no doubt won this Liberal government many seats. There is no doubt about that. In Ontario 10, 20, 30 seats, who knows, were won by Liberal candidates because of promises to get rid of the GST. It was a key election promise. It is a promise that has not been delivered on in any way, in any state, in any fashion. This government must be held accountable for that. What we have is GST-2, a so-called harmonized GST.
We are here today to debate Group 1 of the amendments. It is hardly worth debating amendments to this piece of legislation. This legislation really does not warrant support in any way. By making these amendments it is not going to negate the fact that another promise made by candidates running in the last election, made by the Prime Minister before the last election, during the election campaign and even since the election promise to get rid of the GST, no number of amendments are going to overcome that fact, and that is a fact. This government does not seem to understand what integrity is. This is just another one of those issues that demonstrate that so clearly.
The promise, of course, has come back to haunt this government. We have had the Deputy Prime Minister, after talking to a bank machine, decide that she was going to step down. She did it because she knew she would not have a hope in heck of winning again during a regular election campaign if she did not. It cost the taxpayers $500,000 because she could not look that bank machine in the eye.
We have a finance minister that has asked for forgiveness for maybe not delivering on this key promise of the last election campaign. He said "we made a mistake" and he asked for forgiveness. But this is more than a mistake. A key election promise was broken. That is not a mistake. I do not think the taxpayers and the voters in this country should be forgiving. I do not think they should just let the finance minister get away with breaking a key promise.
We have the member for York South-Weston who was banished from the Liberal caucus by the Prime Minister because he kept insisting-he was member of Parliament for this Liberal government-that his own political party and his own government would see the light, would show some kind of integrity, some degree of integrity and keep that election promise. He was so determined that he was not going to be a part of this broken promise that he pushed the point until he was thrown out of the party. He is now sitting as an independent. He at least of all the hundred some Liberal members of Parliament had enough integrity to stand up for this constituents on this issue.
The member for Broadview-Greenwood temporarily went into self-imposed exile over this issue. He knew that it is wrong to break a promise and that Canadian voters no longer are going to just say "oh well, we didn't expect you to keep this promise anyway". They expect political parties when they are out on the campaign trail to make promises that they are going to keep, in particular the key promises. I think they should expect that all promises will be honoured but in particular the key promises like this GST which should certainly be honoured by the people who make the promises.
There is no doubt this issue is going to cost this Liberal government those seats that it won based on this promise and I think it is going to cost it a lot of seats besides. Canadians are absolutely sick and tired of politicians who say they are going to do something and they get down to Ottawa and they completely forget what they said they were going to do.
Thinking of the events of yesterday and today, Canadians have decided they are fed up with other things that take place in this House as well. Yesterday we heard once again a member from across the floor use a word and call one of my colleagues a racist. That is unacceptable. But we have been putting up with this for three years in this House. Words like that-