Mr. Speaker, I totally agree with the hon. member. I am a bit surprised because, as far as I know, his party is going to support the motion. I think, though, that the motion ensures that the Standing Committee on Finance will be confined to a rather cosmetic role.
In our view, Quebec harmonized its sales tax with the GST in 1992. There were some very lively debates at the time. I can recall, for example, that Mr. Séguin, who was the minister of revenue, resigned as a result of Robert Bourassa’s decision to harmonize the QST with the GST. It was not easy, but a decision was made, and we have had a harmonized tax ever since 1992, or for nearly 18 years.
We do not have anything against Ontario and British Columbia deciding to harmonize their sales taxes with the GST, but we would like to have a much more serious study of it than what the government is proposing. The impression I have is that the finance committee’s role will simply be window-dressing and the government has already decided to proceed.
As I said, the best way to handle this would have been to allow the bill to take the usual route through the House, especially as it seems that at least three parties—the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois—agree with it in principle. Our primary concern is to ensure that there are no poison pills in the bill that is going to be introduced, which we have not yet seen, and that it includes the items which will enable Quebec to reach an agreement with the federal government, whether this is done by correcting the situation or by not standing in the way of negotiations between Quebec and the federal government.