Mr. Speaker, one thing about the value added taxes around the world is that their goal is essentially to assist the lowest income levels. By reducing them so they do not actually help, or say a person who buys a Mercedes for $100,000 ends up paying less tax than someone who buys a lower priced vehicle, then we are defeating the whole purpose of value added taxes such as the GST.
A number of people have come to my office and said that they thought the taxes had been lowered but theirs had gone up. The fact that taxes went up from 15% to 15.5% really shocked many people. Those are the people who walk to my office and probably do not even take a bus. They certainly do not drive there. They can see the difference quite tangibly.
For someone who has a lower income .5%, it is a great deal of money. We have to understand that these people really budget their money accordingly. For them, it is very difficult to try to understand what the effect of a large scale GST cut will mean when it affects them directly in a very personal way.
From an environmental standpoint, I also believe value added taxes such as the GST kept at its previous level would have been more helpful in addressing many of the concerns we have.