Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the Bloc Quebecois amendment to Bill C-70. I find it sad to have to propose an amendment to Bill C-70 to have books exempted. Taxing books is like taxing knowledge, taxing education, taxing skills.
Why is the Liberal government still taxing culture? Culture is the foundation of what we are, it is our identity, it is our roots. Culture is the Quebec culture, and it is also the Canadian culture.
In Quebec, since the introduction of the QST, all books have been exempted from the provincial sales tax, not just books acquired by literacy institutions or public libraries, but all books.
We also know the reason for maintaining the tax on books. For the information of our viewers, it is that the tax on books accounts for the greatest part of revenues generated by the GST. The government does not give a hoot about preserving our fundamental rights. The government thumbs its nose at both the Quebec culture and the Canadian culture. Its favours a system made for the rich. We, in the Bloc Quebecois, feel that it is unfair and unjust.
Our authors, the advocates of our languages and our cultures, have been critical of the fact that all cultural products are taxable. The government must promote cultural products and encourage our authors by abolishing GST on books.
I also want to speak of a political handout. In my view, Bill C-70 is a political handout. It is not a gift to Quebecers. It is something the Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance gave to the maritimes. It is something worth $1 billion.
As we know, this government never gives handouts without a reason. One can rightly conclude that there is a reason behind the handout, in fact I think there are two reasons. The first one is that the Prime Minister is trying to be forgiven for having broken his famous promise to abolish the GST. Whatever the cost, the Liberals wanted an agreement with the maritimes on GST harmonization, but whatever they may say to justify their actions, we are not fooled. They say they never promised to abolish GST, but everybody heard what they said. We will not be fooled.
During the 1993 election campaign, the main thing Liberal candidates said when presenting their platform, the first thing they said, was that the GST had to go. Everybody, across Quebec and Canada, heard what they said. Now, they boldly claim they never said that; Quebecers and Canadians were mistaken, they cannot have heard such a thing since it was not written in the red book. There is something wrong here. It is an abomination. We look like ignoramuses. We have been tricked, and it is our own fault because we did not hear right. We are not that stupid. I wonder how they dare justify breaking their promise by saying that we are the ones who misunderstood.
They made a big fuss about an agreement with three maritime provinces, saying: "Look, this shows we are keeping our promises". In fact, they did nothing of the sort, the GST is still here, even though it was supposed to be killed, scrapped, abolished.
The other reason why they are giving the maritimes such a handout is the unemployment insurance reform. As we know, it has not been well received in that area. To shore up its image, the government has decided to give them a $1 billion present by harmonizing the GST. This will placate critics of the new unemployment insurance program. The Prime Minister is handing out goodies to repair his government's tarnished record, just before calling an election, as we have witnessed lately. We know elections are not far away. The government is clearly on the campaign trail:
across Quebec, even in my own riding, it is handing out presents. Before, it had no money, but suddenly there is money. "So, if you need any for your programs, let us know, we can help".
At the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec they have money. They visit the ridings and give little goodies to the agencies. Since there is an election coming, the goodie is harmonization of the GST so that people will forget about the unemployment insurance reform.
However there is something special about that gift from the federal government. Unlike what normally happens, this time the federal government will not bear the cost of this pre-election handout. It will palm it off to Quebec and the other provinces.
In Quebec alone, the people will have to spend about $250 million to cover the cost of the federal handout to the maritimes. On the whole, that gift will cost Quebec and the other provinces one billion dollars. Needless to say, given the restructuring process going on, this sum could easily have served a better purpose.
Everybody knows that the Prime Minister had promised to slash the GST. We can even say the Liberals criticized that tax long before the last election campaign.
Let me quote the minority report on the GST presented by the Liberals in November 1989, when they were still in opposition: "The Liberal members of the finance committee maintain that the goods and services tax proposed by the Tory government is bad and that no "repair job" of any kind will make it fair for taxpayers". You can find that quote on page 283 of the report.
In closing, I would like to say that Bill C-70 itself is some sort of "repair job".