Mr. Speaker, I will the hon. member where the difficulty is.
Wherever the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard goes and on whatever issue, he promises everything to everyone, but he does not know what his record is. When he was finance minister for nine year, he increased gasoline taxes from 8.5¢ to 10¢ and called it a deficit financing tax. But now, there is no deficit, so why is there a deficit financing tax? Why did he not eliminate it at the same time the deficit was eliminated? That is where the difficulty lies.
Another difficulty is that the government is greedy for taxes. It charges taxes on taxes. It charges GST, the most hated tax in Canadian history, on taxes. Those taxes, whether provincial or federal, are neither goods nor services. That is what GST is supposed to be, but it is being charged on taxes. Can members think of any country in the world where the government is charging taxes on taxes?
The weak Liberal government takes in $4.7 billion in fuel taxes and on top of that it collects $2.25 billion taxes in GST. Out of all this money, how much does it spend on infrastructure development? That is what the gas tax is for. It is to be spent on roads, bridges and infrastructure development. Do members know how much it spends? Just 1.7% of the money. Where does the remaining money go that is collected from gasoline taxes and GST? It goes to that big black hole. The Liberal government is mismanaging taxpayers' money.
If the hon. member really wants to find out where the difficulty is, it is with the government's mismanagement, greediness and arrogance.
The parliamentary secretary has said that it is a provincial problem. That is what the government always does on any federal issue, it transfers the responsibility to the provinces. Even in the case of mad cow disease, SARS and anything else, it will transfer the problem to the provinces.
In this case, with the facts and figures I have quoted, I will tell the hon. member to look into the facts and not simply transfer the responsibility but do something on that side. The government takes so much money away from the provinces, but it gives the provinces only 1.7%. That is where the difficulty is.