Mr. Speaker, it is a bit embarrassing and even humiliating to have to claim what is rightly ours.
Once again, the province of Quebec, through Mr. Landry, is talking about $2 billion that we now have to claim, compared to the maritimes. The GST saga under this Liberal government will go down in the history of our Canadian Parliament, and what a tale it will be. It will be known as one and even several broken promises.
During the 1993 election campaign the prime minister and his ministers promised during their tour of Canada, especially in Quebec, that they would create jobs. "Jobs, jobs, jobs", they kept saying. The next election will be here soon and they will probably use the same slogan and again promise us "jobs, jobs, jobs". In my riding of Matapédia-Matane, we are still looking for the jobs the federal government has supposedly created.
There was another promise. First, let me remind the House of the promises made in the red book on page 22: "The GST has lengthened and deepened the recession. It is costly for small business to administer and very expensive for the government to collect. And the GST has fallen far short of its promised revenue
potential partly because it has stimulated the underground cash economy".
Could it be that once in office federal Liberals realized that the commitments they made in the red book did not hold water? Could it be that, with the Liberals in office, the GST no longer deepens the recession? That it is no longer costly for small business to administer and that it is bringing in its promised revenue potential?
Moreover, if what is in the red book is true, the GST has now suddenly stopped stimulating the underground cash economy. I have a hard time believing that a miracle has happened since the Liberals, these princes of darkness, took office.
Further down on the same page of the red book, we can read: "A Liberal government will replace the GST with a system that generates equivalent revenues, is fairer to consumers and to small business, minimizes disruption to small business, and promotes federal-provincial fiscal co-operation and harmonization".
If I understand correctly, the GST is unfair for consumers and small businesses. It is also a nightmare for small and medium size businesses, and it deters federal and provincial governments from co-operating and harmonizing their policies.
All those big defects would also have, as if by chance, disappeared a few months after the Liberals came to power. Federal Liberals, by some sort of magical trick, would have toned down the GST's worst effects, and the GST would no longer hurt anyone. On the contrary, it would almost be a godsend.
After the broken promises of the red book came the promise made by the Prime Minister who, like a new messiah, stated that he would abolish the tax. Some time later, he said that he had never promised such a thing. He only said that the GST would be replaced. This is hard to believe for me as well as for my constituents and the rest of the country.
Can we believe the Prime Minister? Can we have faith in him? The Deputy Prime Minister even resigned because she had really promised to abolish the GST. But the Prime Minister always affirmed the contrary. The Deputy Prime Minister resigned, and it cost us half a million dollars to get her re-elected. What a scandal. What utter nonsense. It is another episode in the GST saga.
As for the Minister of Finance, he admits that he cannot replace the GST nor abolish it. At least he admits having made a mistake by letting people believe it was possible. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, maintains he never said he would abolish the tax.
The rest of the story is not really any rosier. Quebec, which is administered by a nasty sovereigntist government-according to the federalists-decided to harmonize that tax with its own taxation system. Aware of the extra red tape that tax represents for businesses, the government of Quebec decided to take action to help the economy.
However, it will not receive any compensation from the federal government. The only expression of thank Quebecers will get from the Minister of Finance for having saved him money will be the obligation to pay a quarter of the compensation of almost one billion dollars that was granted to the maritimes. Not only will we not receive anything but we will have to help the maritimes. This is clearly another example of the inequities of the federal system as managed by our friends across the floor.
To get out of the mess they put themselves in, the Liberals are ready to buy the concurrence by the maritimes. They will buy the tax harmonization by making taxpayers in Quebec and Canada cough up almost one billion dollars.
The Quebec government does not ask for different treatment, but only for the same treatment as the maritimes. However, the federal government does not want to give compensation because it is Quebec.
It must be said that we, Quebecers, are unfortunately used to that kind of attitude from the federal government. In research and development, you know that we never got our fair share. The history of the Canadian Confederation is full of examples of that. So, you will understand that we have had enough.
That is why Quebecers want to achieve sovereignty. We no longer want to pay federal taxes that will go directly to the maritimes. We do not want the government to play that dirty trick on us. Mind you it is not the first time.
We no longer want to pay for the errors made by the federal government, let alone for campaign promises that a party is unable to keep. We no longer want policies such as the national energy policy which, in the 70s, almost completely destroyed Quebec's petrochemical industry without any compensation for Quebec.
I am almost tempted to say thank you. Quebecers will remember that. They will not be fooled by this government in the next election. This time, we do not want to hear about jobs, jobs, jobs. Two billion dollars represent 35,000 jobs, which would lower the unemployment rate by 1 per cent in Quebec. We need these 35,000 jobs, especially in my riding of Matapédia-Matane. The government owes it to us.
We are not asking for a gift, we are simply asking to get back what we pay in taxes to the federal government.