Mr. Speaker, I must say you are much better looking than I expected to see in the chair.
I am really happy to speak on this bill. The bill we are debating is Bill C-70. Bill C-70 is a very clumsy attempt by this Liberal government to harmonize the goods and services tax with the provincial sales taxes in three Atlantic provinces.
Another little wrinkle now which the Liberals have thrown into this mess is to hide the new harmonized sales tax from consumers by requiring the sticker price to include tax. In addition to some of the objections that I mentioned to this bill when I spoke on it before, we now have a situation where it is even worse than it was when I last spoke. Perhaps if I point out some of the difficulties to this government it will pay close attention and it will be happy to change the parts of the bill that are inadequate and inappropriate.
This tax inclusive pricing should be changed, should be abandoned, should be scrapped, a good Liberal word. for four reasons. One is that tax inclusive pricing kills jobs, the jobs, jobs, jobs that the Liberals promised us faithfully in the last election that they were going to create. It kills jobs because it hits business right between the eyes and takes away profits and resources that could have been used to expand business and hire more people.
The second reason this tax inclusive pricing is bad is it makes us pay more for what we buy. Goodness knows, with this government's sucking $24 billion more out of our pockets every year than it did when it took office, we can ill afford to have increased costs.
The third reason tax inclusive pricing should be scrapped is that it is clearly nothing more than a clumsy, shoddy attempt to hide the fact that the Liberals have broken another key election promise, which was to get rid of the GST.
The fourth reason to get rid of tax inclusive pricing is that it is a big example of how we are losing democracy in this country, how we are losing the ability of the people to have a say in things that affect them. That is perhaps the most serious problem of all.
I want the Liberals to know that I am going to agree with the Liberal finance minister, Paul Martin. The Liberal finance minister, Paul Martin, said on November 28, 1989: "The goods and services tax is a stupid, inept and incompetent tax". I agree with that statement. I agree that it is a tax which has caused nothing but headaches and grief to Canadians. I am sure all members of the House have had constituents in their offices who were absolutely beside themselves because the way the tax is administered, it is nearly impossible for them to know what the expectations are, what kind of rules and regulations they have to meet and what the true impact on their businesses will be.
The Liberal finance minister, Paul Martin, said-