Madam Speaker, I have a couple of points.
At the beginning of his remarks the member implied that it is our position that the throne speech contains no attempts to improve parliament. That is not our position. Our position is that the provisions of the throne speech to improve parliament are pathetically inadequate. I just want to make that clear.
My comment and question really is on the first part of the member's remarks, wherein he dismisses the idea that energy consumers would be better helped by a tax reduction rather than a rebate.
This member and other members opposite have resisted every suggestion to reduce consumption taxes on fuel or anything else by saying that it will not be passed on to the ultimate consumer, that it will be absorbed by the oil company, the manufacturer, the distributor or someone else. This is their argument as to why there is no point in reducing consumption taxes: that they cannot do it because they cannot pass it on to the consumer.
In 1993 the Liberal Party itself promised to eliminate a consumption tax, the GST. It would never have promised that if it had not believed that there was some mechanism to ensure that the reduction in that tax was passed on to the taxpayer. Why does the government not take that mechanism, which it had in place when it planned to eliminate the GST, and use it to pass on a reduction in fuel consumption taxes to hard pressed energy users?