Mr. Speaker, the gasoline taxes we are talking about are federal taxes, the excise tax and the GST. If the member feels that a province ought to raise the provincial tax it charges on gasoline, it should do it: double it, triple it. It does not matter.
However do not ask the federal government to surrender a federal tax that we need in order to run the country, to guarantee the fuel supply. This argument that gasoline tax should be only used for roads ignores the fact that the money the federal government collects through excise tax is used to fund the military, to guarantee the supply of oil from the Middle East, to guarantee that we have the ability to create trade across the border.
The federal government has all kinds of obligations that indirectly impinge on where that oil comes from, how it is turned into gasoline and how it fuels the country. To suggest that the federal tax collected on gasoline should only be used for road infrastructure or infrastructure is that we can make the same argument that the provincial tax collected on gasoline should be used to subsidize the military. We need helicopters, we need all this kind of thing. Why is the provincial government not doing that? It is just crazy.
I will not go on any further. With all respect to my colleague, I do not think the answer merits any greater exposition.