There is more to it than that. We in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia pay more for postage stamps than anywhere else in the country because this government introduced the HST. It bribed, cajoled and did everything it could to the Atlantic provinces, and this is what we got stuck with.
The most dreaded tax of all time was the GST. That was not good enough for the Liberals. They had to throw the HST on people. There is HST on children's clothing. There is HST on electricity. There is HST on home heating oil. There is HST on gasoline. How the heck do the Liberals expect low income earners and those on fixed incomes like pensioners to pay for the basic necessities of the day to day lifestyle in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland?
It is simply scandalous that the hon. member for Durham, with the cheerleading crowd from Ontario, and Reform members can stand and say that there should be more tax cuts. Why do they not stand in the House and tell the people of Atlantic Canada “Yes, we will give you a tax cut. We will give you a major tax cut on the HST”.
We now have a premier who is unelected, Mr. Russell MacLellan. He was appointed by the Liberal Party. He was here in the House and signed the agreement implementing the HST. Now he is back there saying to the people, because he may be coming up for a byelection soon, that they will re-think the HST. We are encouraging him to re-think it all the way back to the federal party.
Of course, the finance minister is saying “Mr. MacLellan, before you can say anything like that you have to come to speak to us first”. His hands will be completely tied because of the Liberal agenda, a Liberal agenda which has been pushed and controlled by the Reformers. To us it is simply scandalous that this goes on and on.
The member for Durham was talking about giving money to these programs. Exactly. Total tax reform means that we can get enough taxes from profitable businesses and corporations that can afford to pay their fair share and spread the money around.
An elderly gentleman in Cape Breton told me a year ago “Peter, money is like manure. It is only good when it is spread around. When it concentrates in one pile you know exactly what it does”.
I could go on and on with this, folks, but I can assure the House that Atlantic Canadians will not stand for it any longer. Come May the original TAGS program, which was supposed to go to May 1999, is going to expire.
May I remind the House that in the last year we have had people in New Brunswick tear-gassed by the Frank McKenna government. They were fighting to keep their schools open. We have had Cape Breton unionized workers burn down an apartment building because they were in distress trying to find jobs. We had people rocking a media bus in Newfoundland because of their desperation for the TAGS program and supplement programs of that nature.
I encourage members of the House to work together to help those people in Atlantic Canada because if we do not, come May it is going to be a very sorry picture indeed.