Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the House on Bill C-32.
I remind our viewers that this is an act to implement the budget of February 28, which we are to pass so the government may make certain expenditures.
I will say right off that the budget the Minister of Finance presented on February 28 provided for surpluses of some $95.5 billion for the next five years.
Logically we should be delighted. We should say “If the government is accumulating surpluses for the next five years, we are a long way from the budget cuts that were made to eliminate the deficit. We are a long way from the situation in which we had a deficit of $42 billion during the years of the Conservative government under Mr. Mulroney”. Initially this looks like good news.
However, I have to point out, with all due respect, that it does not represent good news if indeed the government will be raking in some $95 billion in the coming five years—it may in fact represent a problem.
Before becoming an MP, I had the opportunity to be a city councillor. I am a resident of Boischatel on the côte de Beaupré and I had the opportunity of sitting on the municipal council for seven years. I will draw an analogy, and it is very relevant to the situation we are in today.
I recall that when I served as councillor between 1987 and 1993 until my election as the member for Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans we had budget surpluses in certain years. I can still see the mayor of the time busting his britches and saying “We were good managers; we have a surplus”. I am sorry, but what I am saying applies to the Minister of Finance as well. If a government accumulates surpluses shamelessly, it means that it is accumulating them because it is overtaxing.
A government should tax according to its needs, rather than giving way, as this Liberal government has done, to an impulse to overtax and to reduce the income of certain classes of society. We will come back to this, but this is the point I wished to make: a $95 billion surplus over the next five years is hardly good news. It means that this government is cutting too deep and taxing too heavily.
If this government were realistic, it would set taxes at a reasonable level, so that taxpayers could breathe a little easier. They will not breathe any easier with the small tax cuts expected up until 2004. On the contrary, Canadians are still heavily taxed by international standards.
I have this to say to the Minister of Finance, the member for LaSalle—Émard, “If you have a $95 billion surplus, if you think you are so great, you should be able to do something about the real problems”.
I want to talk about a real problem, one which continues to drag on while this government, as usual, does nothing—I am referring to the increase in the price of gas. The present situation in Canada, particularly in Quebec, is completely unacceptable.
Let us not forget that in addition to GST this government collects an excise tax on every litre of gas sold. This excise tax is 10 cents per litre of gas at the pump, and 4 cents per litre of diesel fuel. If this government has a $95 billion surplus, if it is crowing about how wonderful it is, let it immediately suspend the excise tax, in order to give taxpayers and consumers a little breathing space and slow down the inflationary trend resulting from recent increases in the price of gas.
As the Bloc Quebecois transport critic, I am regularly in touch with trucking associations, owners of bus companies, and owners of school and other buses. These people, particularly the truckers, are all telling us that they have no choice but to pass on to consumers the increase in the price of gas.
At present, when young couples building new homes order landfill, or topsoil for their yards so as to start a lawn, the trucker will have no choice but to pass these costs on to them.
The intercity carriers, who are barely making a profit at present, will have no choice but to pass these costs on to the consumer.
Another example would be companies shipping goods by road. If shipping costs rise, the costs of the goods will rise as well. This shows the whole inflationist spiral the recent rise in gas prices has triggered.
Why is the Bloc Quebecois calling for immediate suspension of this tax? To give companies a bit of a chance to catch their breath until prices get back to a reasonable level.
Every member in this House, as well as those watching us at home, knows that the average cost of a litre of gasoline at the pump in Quebec was about 54.9 cents in February 1999.
Everyone finds gas prices far too high. Some people have made what in my opinion is a logical and normal choice: to use public transportation. In major cities, one sees growing numbers of people on in-line skates, or taking the bus or subway. There are people who have decided that, because of the atmospheric pollution caused by automobile emissions, they are going to do their part by choosing not to use their cars to get to work.
That is fine, but there are people who have no choice. Those who are faced with these gasoline price increases are telling us “It makes no sense, we are getting poorer by going to work”.
In February 1999, when the price at the pump was 54.9 cents a litre, no one was saying that it was too much. It had reached an acceptable level, given inflation and people's incomes.
This morning I left my riding of Beauport to come here and I stopped in Montreal, where a litre of gas costs 84.9 cents. There is a huge difference, 30 cents a litre, between the price of 54 cents in February 1999 and today's price of 84 cents, in early June 2000.
This government claims that it is compassionate and that it respects consumers. It keeps repeating that it listens to Canadians, but which group of Canadians does it listen to? It listens to the big contributors to the Liberal Party.
If this government is listening to ordinary people, it should decide to immediately remove the excise tax, which accounts for 10 cents per litre.
The Bloc Quebecois raised another point regarding gasoline prices, namely the government's laxness regarding competition. This government is not doing anything to promote competition. Canada is the only country, relative to the United States, that lets companies be refiners, distributors and retailers at the same time.
Whether these companies are called Petro-Canada, Esso or Irving, they all have their own refineries. They get a margin of profit at the refinery. They send this gasoline to their own distributors and therefore get the profit from the distribution. Then they send the distributors' gasoline to the retailers. They have their own network of service stations—and so they rake in more profit.
Who ends up paying? Who pays the totally unacceptable gasoline prices, like the 84.9 cents a litre they are paying in the Montreal region? Does anyone in this House think this is acceptable?