Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand in the House on a Friday morning and enter into this debate on the GST.
It was the GST that brought me here. I do not know whether that is widely known. The most common statement I heard while knocking on doors in 1993 was “we are going to get rid of those Conservatives who brought us the GST”. A bunch of people asked me why they should vote for Brian O'Kurley when he did not vote for them. Brian O'Kurley was the Conservative predecessor in my riding. It was Brian Mulroney and Brian O'Kurley who campaigned for me in 1993 and undoubtedly delivered more votes for me than I could possibly have got by myself. The GST has a history.
I had a very interesting experience the other day. I was preparing to speak on the fact that the government was invoking closure in its motion in order to reduce the ability of the opposition parties to do their work in the House. My staff and I did a bit of research at the Library of Parliament. Among other things, we looked at some of the newspapers circa 1989 and 1990, in that era when the GST was being debated. It was absolutely incredible to read some of the newspaper reports of the day. I was amazed by the outrage expressed by the present Minister of Industry at that time. He was on this side of the House then. The outrage he expressed toward the Conservative government that was proposing the GST was absolutely amazing. Also, the present Prime Minister was then travelling around the country telling people that his government would kill the GST.
Just as I got here because of the GST, I wonder how many Liberals got elected on that same hatred of the goods and services tax, sometimes called, in our part of the world—I am going to say this real quickly, Mr. Speaker, and then you can stop me afterwards—the gouge and screw tax. That is what it was called out west. The amount of animosity generated by that particular tax was absolutely incredible.
I was not aware until last week that the finance critic from this side of the House took a number of Liberal MPs with petitions out to the Sparks Street mall. It was recorded in the newspapers in 1990. Those MPs asked citizens to sign a petition to stop the GST. The newspapers had huge headlines about all of the overt opposition to the GST.
We know the history of it. The Conservatives finally were persuaded to reduce the rate from 9% to 7%. That, they claimed, was a victory for the people because they listened to the people. I guess they listened like these Liberals listen when it comes to tax policy and other issues. They reduced the rate and then proceeded to put it through the House.
At that time I was researching the use of tactics to prolong debate in the House. Members would not believe what the Liberals did on that side of the House in order to try to stop that legislation. They did not introduce 4,000 amendments—I guess they were not bright enough to think of that as a tactic—but they did all sorts of other things. Finally it was pushed through in a whipped vote.
By the way, our own member of parliament for Elk Island at that time, my predecessor for whom I have a great deal of respect, was a real gentleman in the campaign. I have talked to him several times since then. He is a nice guy, but sitting on the government side he had no choice about representing the wishes of his constituents in that vote, because it was a whipped vote just like pretty well every vote on the government side of the House is a whipped vote. That does not give members of parliament the opportunity to represent their constituents. He was an honourable guy, but he was pushed into the system and I suppose had no choice.
What happened in 1993? I told my friend—and I will call him my friend—Brian O'Kurley that he went down with the ship but that he as an individual did not take down the ship. It was the whole crew that took down the ship. Ten years later we now have a group of Progressive Conservatives represented over on that side of the House in a double file along the wall, five deep on two sides. People just did not ever come back to the PCs. In the last election, the PCs lost some 86% of their vote in Quebec. They have very little market share, whereas there is a great attraction to formerly the Reform and now the Canadian Alliance because we have explicitly as one of our policies that it is our primary duty to represent our constituents.
I like to think that had we had a Canadian Alliance type of government in 1989 and 1990, that tax either would not have been implemented or would have been greatly improved before it was implemented. It would not have been implemented until we had the consent of the people. As it was, the tax was jammed through by an arrogant government, with 85% of Canadians opposed to it. That was an error.
I really commend my hon. colleague from Calgary for his speech. We must be geniuses who think alike because I was going to use the Tudor example as well. The only difference in the story that I remember was that they did not count the windows, they measured the windows. They measured the area. That was why the windows were so small.
If I had a dream that could be fulfilled, because we know there are some private members' bills that commemorate this day or that day, I would like to have a private member's bill passed in the House such that every time people saw a Tudor style small window they would be encouraged, not forced, to incant these words “I hate huge taxes”. If every time we saw one of those buildings we were to say “that is the result of an arrogant government that overtaxes the people”, then perhaps we would start putting pressure on the government to reduce taxes.
Since we are talking about the GST and taxes in general, I should also say that I have little doubt in my mind that it is the presence of the Canadian Alliance on this side that has actually made reduction of taxes an issue of debate and has made it respectable to talk about.
Until we came along, it seemed to make no difference whether it was the Liberals or the Conservatives on whatever side of the House. Each of those governments increased records of the number of times they increased taxes and the amounts by which they increased taxes.
I like to think that we on this side had some considerable influence on the direction the government is now taking in gingerly starting to reduce tax rates. The government knows that the public is starting to hear our message and it knows that the public will vote for us if the government does not do what we are promising to do.
I look at some of the issues the federal government has approached, especially in the major campaign document it introduced four days before the election was called, namely the Minister of Finance's mini statement, and I note that the reason those issues were in there was that the Liberals realized without them we would make huge gains, and so we would have if they would not have stolen from us. I suppose I should commend them for stealing our ideas and tell them to steal more because that is the way to go.
There is another example of how taxation policy affects human behaviour. One of my favourite stories is that of my own father who is now in his 90th year. My dad was a hard-working farmer. He taught us to work hard when we were kids growing up on the farm in Saskatchewan. These days he sees that farmers are farming so well and so efficiently, including my brother, who has taken over the family farm and expanded it.
My dad is deeply distressed and concerned about the fact that these farmers farming so well with big equipment on a large scale and getting good crops, basically four times as much per acre as he was able to raise with his boys when he was a farmer, are now struggling for their very existence, with many losing their farms. It is absolutely despicable. My father has been a farmer all his life and still loves to get out there at harvest time and watch that grain come roaring out of the chute on the combine. He is one who is very practically minded, I can assure members.
I remember the GST coming in and my dad breaking the pattern he had had for a number of years. After I left home, my Dad's financial situation somehow seemed to improve. I wonder whether there was a correlation there. We were very poor when I was young growing up on the farm in Saskatchewan, exceptionally poor. When I graduated from high school, went on to university, got my own job and ceased being dependent on him, somehow at that stage my father's financial fortunes seemed to take a little turn for the better and on more occasions he would buy a new car.
For many years he bought a car every three or four years. In 1991 when the tax came in, my dad had a car that was four years old and was ready to be traded. He went to look at the new ones and the dealer hit him with the GST. He walked away from the dealership. He said to my mom “we are going to keep the car”.
Mr. Speaker, if you are going to interrupt me may I continue later?