Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased to participate in the debate with you in the Chair. I am sure you remember all too well how you were treated by the governing party when you stuck to your principles and was kicked out of the party. I commend you for taking that stand.
Here we are just four days back sitting in this House and we are debating some aspects of the GST. That should be good news to Canadians because by now every Canadian must know about all the promises government members made, from the Prime Minister to all the Liberal candidates who knocked on doors during the last election promising voters that if elected they would abolish, kill or scrap the GST.
Having made all those promises to do away with the GST, the government finally got around to legislation to accomplish that. Is that what we are debating? Are we debating the government's promises? Are we debating a bill that would see the end of the GST? After all that is what the promises were. No, that is not the debate, not at all.
So much for the Liberals' broken promises. Instead of debating a bill to end the GST and reduce it to the rubble heap where it belongs, we are debating the harmonization of the tax, not reducing this most reviled tax to the rubble heap, but how to harmonize the tax with the provincial sales taxes in Atlantic Canada.
Let us look for a moment at the word harmonize and then briefly examine why the government targeted Atlantic Canada specifically. Harmonize is such a nice word. It rings like music to the ears and well it should because the word has a soothing, musical connotation. But that is not all. It also implies a sense of unity, which is not something this government knows too much about, a sense of togetherness and co-operation. When applied to the GST however, harmonization means the four C's . When applied to the GST, harmonization means coercion, confusion, cost and cover-up.
Why target Atlantic Canada? Probably because it was the most vulnerable. Atlantic Canada has been dealt several serious blows by the powers residing in Ottawa. The golden triangle interests became concerned about the economic muscle and the trade activity that characterized Atlantic Canada for decades, possibly even centuries. Ottawa effectively wiped out the shipbuilding industry, which at one time was a flourishing industry; the fishing industry, and we all know about that; the sealing industry, and God knows what else. Well, I guess we do know.
Eventually Atlantic Canada will have to bear the costs of harmonization of the GST, notwithstanding the billion dollar incentive to embrace it now. But more about costs a little later if time permits.
Let us turn to the first C , coercion. Part of the harmonization plan would force businesses to hide the new harmonized sales tax, the HST, in the price of the product or service being sold. And here is the clincher. Businesses in Atlantic Canada had better be aware of this and I am sure they are. They should be well aware of this, but perhaps there are people across the country who still may not know. Here it is: Shopkeepers, businesses, people who make a mistake and sell a product without including the tax in the price would face fines, jail and hence a criminal record. And that is it. It is off to the calaboose, to the gulag for those brave souls who would reveal how much tax Canadian consumers are paying. That is right, it is off to jail, which is absolutely despicable.
Imagine this happening in a country that boasts about its freedoms, liberties and open society. While rapists and robbers can be granted absolute discharges by a judge under sections 763 and 737 of the Criminal Code, Gramps, Pops or Annie down at the cornerstore will be excluded under these sections and they will rot, will languish in jail for not including the HST in the price of a chocolate bar.
Will this government reduce our country and subject Canadians to this kind of lunacy? It is absolutely unbelievable. This reminds me of Bill C-68, the gun control bill. Criminals will possess and use their guns but farmer Jones who may forget to register his .22 or his 12 gauge will be hauled off to jail. If farmer Jones is a grain farmer and does the unthinkable, that is, he sells his wheat or barley to the Americans, then Mr. Jones faces a double whammy. Mr. Jones could be in the same fix as Mr. McMechan.
Andy McMechan did what any other owner of a product in Canada can rightfully do which is they can sell their product abroad. That is what Andy McMechan did. He also did the unthinkable. He sold his wheat to the Americans, just like a steel maker or any kind of fabricator or a cattleman or someone selling any kind of service. These people can sell their goods and services abroad, even to the Americans. But farmers cannot sell their wheat or barley abroad without first selling it to the Canadian Wheat Board and then buying it back at a greatly jacked up price. Then with a permit they can sell it abroad, even to the Americans.
Andy refused to buy back his own wheat and barley, but he did sell to the Americans. Then they came, probably at midnight or maybe just before dawn so the neighbours could not see. Government officials descended on McMechan's farm to seize his farm truck which he would not allow. Then the government officials hauled Andy off to jail without his being formally charged.
Get this. Andy McMechan languished in jail for about six months without being formally charged, but they allowed him to spend Christmas with his family. He risks losing his farm because of the coercion of the government.
Did Andy receive an apology from the government for what the government subjected him and his family to, like a former Prime Minister received? Not that I know of. Andy is an average, hard working taxpayer. The former Prime Minister even though he is out of office is still a member of this country's political elite. He received an apology, plus a cool million dollars or so. What might happen to Andy? He just might lose his farm. So much for coercion, the way it applies to the HST.
I will now speak a bit about the confusion it creates. I have to read this because it is confusing even to read about what the HST will do to Atlantic Canadians. It is probably confusing enough to have a combined provincial and federal sales tax in three of Canada's provinces, two separate sales taxes in six provinces, and only one sales tax in one province. If we need it to be more confounded, how about this.
The new HST legislation will exempt some items from the hidden tax rule and allow businesses to show both a tax inclusive price and a tax exclusive price, as long as the former is displayed. Shoppers could conceivably be faced with four different prices for the same marked down item: the original price with the tax; the original price without the tax; the sale price with the tax; and the sale price without the tax. Confusing? I should say so. It seems to me that businesses in this country are increasingly being reduced mostly as tax collectors for governments.
There is more about examples of costs. A study by the accounting firm Ernst & Young estimated that a mid-sized national chain with 50 stores in the Atlantic provinces would put up to $3 million in one time costs and up to $1.1 million a year to comply with a regional tax in price sales system. The Halifax Chamber of Commerce predicts that the harmonized sales tax will push up new house prices by 5.5 per cent as well as force municipalities to raise property taxes.
I see my time is up, but I hope I get a chance to talk a little more about this particularly agonizing piece of legislation.