The member opposite says "replace". Yes of course it was written as replace in the red book, a very limited production paper that was only available to certain people in Canada. At the town hall meeting the Prime Minister admonished the lady who asked him about his GST promise. He said: "Obviously you did not read the red book". She probably did not but I would suggest she is in good company. There are millions of other Canadians who never had an opportunity to read the infamous red book because as you know, Mr. Speaker, it was not made available to everybody in Canada.
The bottom line is that the GST was something about which the opposition parties said: "No, we will not accept that. This is a matter of fact if we are in power". It is almost as though they thought there was not a ghost of a chance of their getting into power so they could promise the moon. As it turned out they did get into power. People put their trust in them that they would live up to their word and do away with the GST but they did not do that.
This is a little bit like the NAFTA agreement. In opposition the Liberals said over and over how unfair the agreement was, how they would abolish it, do away with it, scrap it and get rid of it. History has shown and will show that it was hardly amended and was accepted almost holus-bolus by the Liberal government once it came into power.
For the many merchants in my constituency who put up with this GST nightmare daily, and I hasten to say that of the problems that come to my constituency office, the GST and problems with the GST are number one.