My colleague from Nanaimo is quite right. According to a chart I have here, if we go back to fiscal year 1992-93, which means it was a government budget under the Progressive Conservatives, of the $3.4 billion that was collected in gas taxes, only $100 million went into roads. This year it is $4.7 billion and $119 million going into roads. Under either administration there has not been much improvement.
We hope that there is a shift across the country with regard to all political parties in terms of having more accountability and responsibility with regard to fuel taxes.
My colleague is quite right. There are two other examples both of which fall under the previous administration and the current administration. In the final budget of the former finance minister and the leadership frontrunner for the Liberal Party, he introduced the infamous $24 air security tax. That tax was supposed to go into air security. It did not. It went into general revenues. It was supposed to be channelled from general revenues into air security. We still have not had a clear base line accounting on how that money was collected and spent. This is an example again of the Liberals saying that they are imposing a tax for a purpose and the tax does not go to the purpose for which it was imposed.
The most infamous example perhaps of the last decade was imposed under the Progressive Conservatives and which the Liberals said they were going to deal with but they have not dealt with. They said that the goods and services tax was supposed to go specifically to paying down the debt and that it would not go into general revenues. That was in fact not true and it was deliberately not the truth. That is not the kind of fiscal responsibility that was expected by Canadian taxpayers.
If a tax is imposed for a purpose, taxpayers expect politicians to keep their word and make sure those dollars go to that purpose. The GST did not serve that purpose, the $24 air security tax did not serve that purpose and gas taxes day in and day out are ripping off Canadian travellers.