Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Finance said that if taxes were higher in Quebec it was because a sovereignist government was in power. Perhaps the minister, the pretender to the Liberal throne, has forgotten that the federalists, his Liberal cousins, were the ones to have taxed Quebecers so heavily, while Bernard Landry is lowering taxes.
Perhaps too, taxes are so high in Toronto because the mayor there is a sovereignist?
Or perhaps taxes are higher in Quebec than in Ontario because of the $2 billion shortfall in constructive spending by his government? Or because of the refusal to compensate Quebec in the amount of $2 billion for the harmonization of the GST with the QST? Or the cuts to transfers, a very large portion of which fell to Quebec? Or because the Quebec tax system is much more generous than anywhere else in Canada to the disadvantaged, students, seniors and low income families.
Or perhaps it is because the Minister of Finance is a Liberal, a federalist and rich that the level of taxation by his government requires certain shipowners, including himself, to sail under foreign flag in order to avoid paying tax in Canada?