Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the other very distinguished member for St. John's West would ask those questions because I remember when the Nova Scotia hospital tax was brought in, not the cottage hospital tax but the Nova Scotia hospital tax, and everybody agreed with it. Nobody could disagree with a hospital tax.
However within a very few years it went up pretty fast. All of a sudden it was not the hospital tax any more, it was the sales tax. That is what happens when we start with dedicated taxes. They grow, expand and we do not know where they will go. It restricts the ability of government to make decisions as situations change and circumstances evolve.
With respect to the hon. for LaSalle—Émard, I wish he had spoken up when his colleague in his own cabinet took, I think, $26 million out of the highway commitment to build a highway to replace the most dangerous highway in Nova Scotia, his colleague who sat right in the next seat to him, and gave it to his own riding. The member for LaSalle—Émard should have spoken up then and there and stopped that outrageous event.