Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on Bill C-70, the Group No. 3 debate.
Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak on motions in Group No. 2. As members will recall, I had spoken a lot about the political side of imposing the GST and now the harmonized sales tax in the Atlantic provinces.
I mentioned at the time that the public has had an opportunity to speak at the polls in Atlantic Canada on two occasions and the public has had the opportunity to speak to the government through the standing committee and through members of Parliament.
As was indicated by other speakers today, the public in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland in particular, because the committee did not travel to Atlantic Canada, did not have a direct opportunity to address the bill as it appears today.
I was impressed with the results of the two election polls that were taken with regard to this. To reiterate quickly my remark from this morning, in Prince Edward Island where the government had chosen not to harmonize but where the threat to harmonize remains, the public spoke loud and clear, defeated the Liberal government and elected a Conservative government in an election in which the harmonization was an issue on the doorstep.
In Nova Scotia in a riding known as Halifax Fairview where the people had a chance to put the harmonization effort to the supreme test, at the polls, not only did the government lose that but it lost it very soundly. New Democrats won that seat by 65 per cent of the vote.
As other members in the Chamber have indicated, Liberal members from Atlantic Canada have not been very vocal in this debate in the House on the harmonization matter. I think it is very clear that had New Democrats been sent to Ottawa from the Atlantic provinces the voices of those people would be heard in this Chamber. Never has there been a better example of how New Democrat representation is representation of the people. There is no question that the people of Halifax Fairview are being heard through the New Democrats in this House today because of the representation we are able to make.
On the matter presented here in the bill and through these amendments I have a number of additional remarks to make, including ones relating to some of the matters that were raised by the Liberal speaking prior to me. I think he is going to hear himself quoted back to him on many occasions. I was astounded to hear him say the best replacement for the GST is the GST itself.
Certainly the Prime Minister and other members of the Liberal Party have not used that kind of a representation of what it is that they are doing with harmonization, but certainly the GST and the HST in the public view are not the kind of promises that it thought it was getting in the last election when it chose the Liberals over the Conservatives at the national level. The public wanted to get rid of the GST, not to get it back renamed.
The member also talked about the benefit to business that the harmonization effort brings. There is no question about it. If we want to look at it from the banks' and the multinationals' point of view, the HST is a windfall for them. In fact, we have calculated that if the HST were applied across Canada, it would be a $6 billion windfall for business in this country, a transfer of money from the consumer to the corporations. That means absolutely nothing to this government, it seems, that the transfer is just a natural state of affairs.
We in the New Democratic Party reject that notion very strongly and we reject the harmonized sales tax because it threatens to transfer more funds from the already overtaxed consumer to the much undertaxed multinational corporate sector.
I think that instead of harmonization, which is the key word in the debate today, we should be talking about national standards and we should be talking about national standards not just in taxation matters, fair taxation right across the board for all Canadians, but also national standards in all the matters that fall under federal jurisdiction and within federal responsibilities.
During question period today I raised the issue of grain cars not moving from the prairies to the ports because the railroads have failed to live up to their commitments under the grain car allocation policy. The federal minister of agriculture refuses to accept his responsibility, even his authority in this regard.
It is time the federal government accepted its full responsibility on matters within its jurisdiction and started to move and set national standards.
In this regard, fair taxation or grain movement, we have to find ways to ensure that not only in the design and funding of programs but in maintaining and enhancing our standards of living right across Canada we have to develop and follow these national standards within the federal authority.
What about in the environment? It is something I have been very active in and I have done a lot of work here in the House of Commons and outside the House of Commons and is something Mr. Speaker is very interested in I know. Environment is an area where we are devolving power to the provinces and neglecting a strong national standard across the country, in transportation and the grain car situation I mentioned earlier and also a national railway policy, a national highway policy, a national airline policy, which gets us away from the deregulation and devolution powers that have made our country now a patchwork of poor transportation systems. We need national standards across the country which will serve to help eliminate poverty in all provinces of Canada.
I could speak about literacy and education, training and tuition fees. Just yesterday the province of Ontario announced another increase in tuition fees. They increased 20 per cent last year and will increase 10 per cent this year. These are massive increases for young people who want to pursue post-secondary education in the province of Ontario.
British Columbia, which recognizes the value of education to young people, froze tuition fees two years ago to ensure that every student that passes grade 12 or meets other eligibility requirements to attend post-secondary education has an opportunity to achieve that higher education.
Affordability is very important in education. We need national standards in that regard.
We need national standards for health care, as opposed to harmonized standards across the country. The national health forum this week talked about a national prescription drug program. It is very important not to devolve that or harmonize it with the provinces. We must have national standards.
We need national standards for child care. We need youth dental programs. We need home care programs. These all require a very strong national presence to ensure that the services are delivered effectively. We must ensure that all Canadians, whether in Newfoundland, Quebec, Saskatchewan or British Columbia, have equal access to the same care, programs and services.
There is a lot which should be said about these types of things. I am sorry there is not enough time to deal with them. I hope I will have an opportunity to continue my remarks when the next group of motions comes up for debate.