The sales tax situation in Quebec changed a long time before the Liberal Party took office. It was a totally different regime. It was initiated by the Government of Quebec and a deal was made a long time before the Liberals took power. The only people that agreed to the harmonized sales tax were in Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
One raison d'être of the agency is to push the idea of harmonizing sales taxes. I can say from my trips to Atlantic Canada that the blended sales tax, the HST, is very unpopular. It almost led to the defeat of the Liberal government in the Nova Scotia election just a few months ago. It did defeat the government in Prince Edward Island.
Another concern I have about the bill before the House today is that once the agency is established the pressure will be there. They will put pressure on the provinces to agree to harmonize the tax. Even my friend from Souris—Moose Mountain in Saskatchewan would not agree with the BST. He would not agree with a blended sales tax, and he is a member of the Reform Party.
We have a number of reasons for questioning the bill and I want to summarize them again very briefly. The first is provincial opposition. The provinces do not like an agency that will collect federal and provincial taxes. Ontario has said no. Quebec has said no. The other provinces have not signed on. Saskatchewan and British Columbia are unlikely to sign on. Why would we have this agency, which is supposed to be a federal-provincial agency?
On the question of national unity, with the Quebec election coming up, this is an agency that is supposed to take power away from the provinces rather than give power to them. That is a concern to most members of the House.
Second is the very size of the agency in terms of it developing into an agency like the Internal Revenue Service in the United States.
Third is the whole question of privatization, diminishing the role of government and downsizing the public service. The Reform Party may agree with that. It does not really like government. It does not really like the public sector. That is not the Canadian way. That is not the Canadian tradition. That is one reason the Reform Party is going nowhere. It is taking a stand against Canadian tradition that the public sector is extremely important, a very important part of what makes the country tick. Another reason I want to mention is the lack of accountability. Accountability just will not be there once it becomes an arm's length agency.
Those are our major concerns as a party. I close by saying to the minister and to government members across the way that if four opposition parties have concerns about the bill in these areas, surely to goodness there must be government backbenchers that have the same concerns. They talk to their constituents. They listen to the people. They hear from the unions involved with Revenue Canada and know the opposition of the majority of the unions such as the Public Service Alliance of Canada. They hear from the workers who will be affected directly. They talk to people. Surely to goodness we can have some independent thinking on the Liberal side of the House. They should get up to express some concern that the bill does not go in the right direction.
It is about time we had a parliamentary system that allowed people to take off the muzzle and speak their minds. Surely to goodness we cannot have all the government thinking one way and the opposition thinking another. No wonder people are questioning the sanity of this place and the relevance of the Parliament of Canada. Yet the whips will be on to those backbenchers who talked to me privately. They questioned the bill and the wisdom of the agency but they will not be allowed to say so in the House. They will not be able to vote that way. Let us have a free vote on this issue so that members of the House can express their feelings and the feelings of their constituents.
This should not be a confidence vote. There is no reason it should be a confidence vote. It does not go to the heart of government policy. It does not go to the heart of a government budget. If we have a free vote on this issue we can speak our minds and ensure that we are doing the right thing for the people. I am glad the Reformers agree with that.
The Liberals have talked about free votes time and time again, but in their five years in the House they have not delivered on the promise of a free vote.
I close by making an appeal to the minister across the way. Let us have a beginning of parliamentary reform, a beginning of a true democracy in this institution, by allowing a free vote on an important bill regarding the collection of Canadian taxes.
It is a very important issue. The collection of taxes is a fundamental issue in democracy. It is the prerogative of the state. The role of the state is to collect taxes. I do not want to see it privatized or evolved away to an agency that will be run according to business practices. I do not want to see it turned over to an agency that will not be accountable to the government like it has been in the past. I do not want to see that happen.
Let us have a free vote. If I could ask the minister whether or not he would agree with that, I would be glad to sit down to hear his answer.