Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise once again and speak to Bill C-70. We continue to have grave concerns about Bill C-70, and I, once again, will run through some of those major concerns.
The reason it is important that the Reform Party take time to run through some of the great concerns Canadians have about Bill C-70 is because the Liberal Party representatives from Atlantic Canada have failed to rise to their feet to defend the people of Atlantic Canada. As I pointed out before, this whole thing came about with the understanding that the GST would be eliminated, that we would not have a GST once the Liberals came to power.
Although the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister denied it after they made the promises, unfortunately for them, television cameras do not lie, videotape does not lie and they were found out. They were revealed to have made promises to get rid of the GST. They had to concoct a wild scheme to try to convince Canadians that the GST was going to disappear. All they did, as members well know, is come up with a billion dollars to bribe Liberal Atlantic Canadian premiers to come on board.
From that sorry beginning, we are once again in a situation where the people of Atlantic Canada are being denied the chance to hold Liberal members of Parliament accountable for a promise. I want to touch on that in a little more detail.
During the finance committee hearings, witnesses came from across the country but in particular from Atlantic Canada. Those witnesses asked why the hearings could not be held in Atlantic Canada. As this legislation has such a profound effect on Atlantic Canada, why did the finance committee not take the time to go to Atlantic Canada to hear from real live Atlantic Canadians?
A handful of people did come from Atlantic Canada, but not everybody can give up a day to come to Ottawa to tell the government their story. These people made the point rather well that in a democracy, people should have the right to representation before taxation, at least the right to consultation before the government bulldozes ahead and implements a taxation system that nobody asked for and nobody wanted. That is a basic right.
It was not very long ago that all kinds of GST rallies were held across the country, where people were protesting the imposition of the GST. Maybe Mr. Speaker was involved in them at one time. I have no idea. People across the country were very upset and protested what the Tories were doing. Indeed, the Liberals made tremendous gains by saying that they would never, ever bring in a tax of that kind that nobody wants. And the people said with one voice: "Don't you dare do that".
Part of the reason that the Tories disappeared off the political landscape was because they brought in a tax that nobody wanted, that people did not ask for. The people felt they were not being represented. Consequently, the Tories were reduced to a mere two seats in the House of Commons.
As Yogi Berra would say: "It is deja vu all over again". The Liberals are bringing in a tax they said they hated, that they would scrap and kill. They have thrown $1 billion at the problem to try and fix it. That did not work. Now we are in a situation where they are denying the people of Atlantic Canada the right to have a say on a tax that will fundamentally affect them.
During the hearings a number of provincial politicians appeared before us. Members would acknowledge that it is really quite unusual to have a number of provincial politicians appear before a committee to protest something that is going to take place in their regions. They had to come to Ottawa was because the Liberals would not allow hearings in Atlantic Canada on a tax that is going to affect those people. The fact that these prominent citizens took the time and effort to come to Atlantic Canada speaks volumes. It says something about the lack of representation that the people of Atlantic Canada are getting from their Liberal MPs. They would not be forced to send provincial representatives to Ottawa if the MPs in Ottawa would stand up for them. But they are completely silent.
In Atlantic Canada where unemployment is a curse that has plagued that region for a generation, we heard witness after witness say that the new harmonization legislation was going force businesses to close.
One gentleman came before us and said that he had already closed eight or nine stores in New Brunswick at a cost of approximately 72 jobs. A witness representing Carleton Cards said 19 stores would be closed. He did not put any caveat on it. If this legislation came in, 19 stores would be closed, again affecting a number of jobs.
We heard from a gentleman from Woolworths Canada that has 125 stores in Atlantic Canada who told us Woolworths could possibly close as many as 30 stores in Atlantic Canada if the legislation came in.
Unbelievably, these people had to come to Ottawa. They could not talk to their local representatives. They could not talk to the Liberal MPs because the MPs could not talk to the finance minister. They could not get their message across. In other words, they were not doing their jobs. To date I have yet to hear one Liberal MP from Atlantic Canada stand and list the concerns of Atlantic Canadians with respect to the harmonization legislation.
If anyone had sat in on the meetings of the finance committee two weeks ago they would know that there are tremendous concerns with this legislation. People are concerned it will kill jobs, close down businesses, create higher prices, less selection for the people of Atlantic Canada. This legislation will have a profound impact on people with low or fixed incomes.
A great debate is raging in the country about child poverty and the government is proposing to put through legislation that will drive up costs on items like gasoline, home heating fuel and utilities. The poorest people in Atlantic Canada simply cannot afford to bear the disproportionate burden that the HST will mean to them when the legislation is implemented.
The point again is that there has been a profound lack of representation from Liberal MPs for people in Atlantic Canada. It has been a dereliction of duty. There have been a number of editorials written in Atlantic Canadian newspapers about the fact that there were not hearings there and that Atlantic Canadian MPs have not been standing up for their constituents.
I just hope that over the course of this debate Liberal MPs across the way have gotten the point, that when they come to Ottawa they are not given their $63,000 so they can sit across the way and shout names, but that they have a job to do. They have a job to do in terms of representing their constituents, to go out and hear what they have to say in the first place and to encourage the finance committee and other committees to visit there when there are bills which
concern that area, and finally to deliver the message to their own government.
We do not come to this place just to collect our salaries, or in the case of the Liberals their MP pensions. We come to the House of Commons to represent our constituents, something the Liberal MPs have completely failed to do with respect to the harmonization legislation.