Mr. Speaker, I was not talking about infrastructure projects. I was talking about the home renovation tax credit, which is what is actually contained in Bill C-51, not infrastructure. What I was talking about in terms of impact on jobs was the harmonized sales tax, which is not in Bill C-51 either. It was in the original budget bill, on page 166.
When we talk about the harmonized sales tax, we are talking about goods and services that are not currently taxed under the provincial tax system, such as vitamins, newspapers and magazines, movie and theatre tickets, haircuts, dry cleaning, adult clothing, funeral costs, food, restaurant meals, housing, bicycles, safety equipment, airplane tickets, and on and on.
When we look at that list, in my community most of the service deliverers are people in small business. Local hairdressers are wondering how they are going to explain the extra 7% to their customers. They expect that their customers will reduce the number of haircuts they get. We often talk about seniors on fixed incomes, single mothers, or fathers who have lost their jobs in forestry.
We are talking about a 7% hit. The government will argue that prices will go down, but we know that in Atlantic Canada it took several years for that to happen. In an economic downturn, why would the government be encouraging the provincial government in British Columbia to add an additional 7% to the cost of many small businesses' goods and services?