Mr. Speaker, thank you for your generosity. Those eight minutes will mean a lot to our party at this end of the Chamber.
What we are talking about on Bill C-13 are technical changes to the GST. The point I was making when we last debated this is the fact that our party will certainly support those technical changes to the GST.
It is somewhat ironic that we are supporting a bill on the GST, which the government said it was going to eliminate when it took office in 1993. I think it is important that the government address that very issue of the elimination of the GST and why it did not live up to that red book promise dating back to the 1993 campaign.
As everyone well knows, just about every member on that side of the House—possibly yourself, Mr. Speaker, although I am sure you were probably more reserved in your comments on this than some of the members—went door to door talking about the elimination of this dreaded tax. Now this dreaded tax which the government promised to eliminate is one of the taxes that is certainly filling its coffers and helping to balance the books.
One of the other points I made and that I think will be made later today by our party as the debate unfolds is the fact that there are other matters of urgency on the economic side which the government should be but is not addressing.
The Prime Minister and the finance minister are sort of whistling by the cemetery in their walk through la-la land. There are some troubling signs that the economy might be stalling, that it might be in trouble. They are ignoring those signs and not even extending some sort of courtesy to the House in terms of at least introducing a budget.
The last time the House actually discussed a budget was with regard to the so-called mini budget on the eve of the last election. Things have changed in the last 120 days. I suggest that it was probably a strategic move on the part of the Prime Minister. Knowing full well that there were some troubling signs on the horizon in terms of the economy, he made what would turn out to be the right decision, I guess, in the timing of the election.
Again, a lot of things have changed in the last 120 days. What we are saying is that the minister should introduce a budget to address some of the concerns we see and to possibly offer some suggestions to the government on how it can deal with the faltering economy.
The belief that we are going to be somehow insulated from what might happen in the United States is absurd when 80% to 85% of our exports go to the United States. They are our biggest trading partner. When they catch a cold we are most likely to catch pneumonia. It is possible.
The truth is, those are some of the considerations that should be taken in the House to address some fast changing circumstances on the economic front.
With that I will conclude my remarks. As always, I look forward to questions and comments from my colleagues.