Indeed, as per usual.
Just before Christmas, we criticized the manner in which the Minister of Finance tabled these documents. The official opposition-I remember, I was there-had fewer than 24 hours to examine a technical bill over 300 pages long, for which we had not received explanatory notes before debate at second reading.
But last January, we witnessed a spectacle that was even more disgraceful for anyone who still believes in the quality of democratic life in Canada. First, the Liberals allowed only three days of public hearings on a bill as vital to the maritimes as Bill C-70. This was last January 20, 21 and 22, you will recall.
The opposition parties asked the government to extend the consultations and to travel to the maritimes to be able to hear what these people have to say, but the Liberal majority on the Standing Committee on Finance, including the parliamentary secretary, defeated this motion in committee.
I also remember tabling this motion in the finance committee last January 22, at the end of the day, and the Liberals simply brushed it aside. Yet the Liberals came up with 13 important amendments-those were their words, "13 important amendments"- to Bill C-70, the very evening of the third and final day of public consultation, claiming that these amendments were a response to the complaints heard during the three days of hearings.
If it was possible to find 13 amendments in three days, imagine how many we would have had if we had been able to extend the public hearings by one week, as the official opposition had requested.
In their haste to leave behind the embarrassing issue of the GST, the Liberals do not want to hear what people have to say; they are afraid that people in the maritimes will tell them the plain truth: Bill C-70 is a botched job, a very bad bill. The Liberals are standing in the way of democracy by preventing citizens from expressing their views, and by moving full steam ahead, worrying more about their electoral agenda than about doing a good job of serving the citizens who will pay for this new tax.
That is not all. The very evening of the clause by clause study of Bill C-70 in committee, the Liberals introduced, at the end of the day, 113 amendments for a bill that had 272 clauses. This in itself is irrefutable proof that Bill C-70 has received amateur treatment from the Liberal government and that more public consultation is needed if citizens' needs are to be met. We are already at third reading. The Liberals turned down the Opposition's request to continue the hearings; it is therefore too late, unfortunately.
Still more distressing is the fact that the official opposition's research service was given only an hour's briefing by the Minister of Finance's staff concerning the 113 amendments the government was planning to table two hours later in committee, and no document was left with them for consultation.
As a Bloc Quebecois member, I sat on the committee the entire day of January 22, and I was given a copy of the 113 amendments under embargo some two and a half hours before the clause by clause study.
As a result, the Bloc Quebecois was not in a position to play its role as the official opposition effectively and appropriately on the finance committee at that time. In a way, the government was asking us to trust it implicitly, to give it carte blanche, to take it on its word, and above all not to hold it back in accomplishing its game plan before the next election.
The Bloc Quebecois proposed a motion to suspend the work of the committee for a week, allowing it the time to examine the Liberal amendments; this motion was rejected by the chair of the finance committee himself.
Even this week, the opposition had not even received the printed copy of Bill C-70 reflecting the amendments received in committee, 24 hours before resumption of the debate on third reading. On February 3, we learned from the Téléjournal that the chairman of the finance committee was still in the process of reviewing the legislation, and that it was possible the government would back down on its plan to include the tax in the price.
How can anyone do a proper job under such conditions? The Liberals are shamelessly thumbing their noses at democracy. We can be sure they will pay dearly in the next election for their arrogance.
In conclusion, I would like to state that the government is deceiving the public by saying that the GST has disappeared. In fact, the Liberals are not living up to their commitment on this, nor have they ever. The GST is still with us, although it was supposed to quite simply disappear from the books, and to do so as quickly as possible.