Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate this afternoon on Motion No. 8, which is one of the most heinous kinds of motions that a government can bring before a Parliament.
There is no doubt that these kinds of time allocation motions do serve to limit the democratic process and limit the ability of members of Parliament and Canadians to participate in debate on legislation that comes before the House of Commons. When that is combined with the closure motion that the government brought forward this morning, it makes it all the worse.
It is unbelievable that the Conservative House leader, the member for Prince George—Peace River, stood in this place this morning and moved closure on debate on this time allocation motion. He has forced this debate to come to a close today with a vote this evening. His closure motion limits the ability of members of Parliament to challenge the government's process on the HST legislation. It is particularly galling that a member from British Columbia would do that when he knows how unpopular this measure is with British Columbians.
I have a feeling that the people of Prince George—Peace River will have a thing or two to say to the House leader of the Conservative Party for bringing forward this kind of limitation on the ability of Parliament to discuss and debate an important piece of legislation, a tax measure no less.
I am sure that had this been several years ago when that member was in opposition, his head would be spinning at the thought of limiting debate on a tax measure before the House of Commons. It is absolutely incredible. People in Prince George will not be happy with the undertaking that the member moved today.
Limiting time on debate may be justified in certain situations. It may be justified if the government's ability to move its agenda forward is completely blocked or bogged down. In that situation an argument might be made for this kind of time allocation motion.
I say might because I do not believe that is generally the case. It is absolutely not the case in this circumstance. There is no evidence whatsoever that the government has been at all impeded in proceeding on this measure. I would like to believe that we could stop this measure, but the time allocation motion had not been brought before the House before the government moved to limit the time spent debating this measure. There is absolutely no evidence that the government's ability to move this through, to advance its program, was impeded.
Advancing the government's program is how the House of Commons manual on procedures refers to the kind of circumstance where time allocation might be engaged, but in this case there is no evidence whatsoever that is the case.
An argument might be made if there were an emergency that required this kind of time allocation, that required the government to advance everything about the legislative process to get something through the House.
What is the emergency in this case? There is no emergency surrounding the HST. There certainly is no emergency around it in British Columbia. The provincial legislature is not even planning on debating this issue until March or April of next year. The Conservatives, even if they get the go-ahead from the provinces and the House of Commons, are not planning on implementing this legislation until July 1 of next year. There is absolutely no emergency related to this bill.
There is absolutely no excuse for advancing the agenda using time allocation and closure, two of the most draconian measures available to a government, when there is no emergency.
Granted, the Conservatives have a very serious political problem on their hands. I am sure they would love the HST issue to be behind them so that they could enjoy their Christmas vacation, so that they could go on their holidays in the new year, so that they could come back to this place at the end of January knowing that it was not going to be around to bother them. We in the NDP and the people of British Columbia are going to make sure that it is still around to bother them.
There is no excuse for the government having moved on this just because it has a political problem and its provincial government friends in British Columbia have a political problem on their hands. Eighty-three percent of British Columbians oppose the HST. We saw that in polls today done by Ipsos Reid and Canwest and Global National. That is an incredibly high figure. The Conservatives have a huge political problem.
I have noted that the Conservative Party members from British Columbia have been very slow to jump to their feet to defend these measures today in the House of Commons. They have been very slow to say anything in this debate whatsoever about what is going on with this and why. Where is the emergency that means we have to proceed on all of this so quickly? It is a very serious issue.
A tax measure deserves a full debate in the House of Commons. Perhaps a tax measure especially deserves a full debate. In the development of our democracy, we have often seen the call of no taxation without representation. Surely, that is what the government has put to the House today with Motion No. 8. For some reason, we have to limit the debate so severely that it really amounts to taxation without representation.
We have made it impossible for the Standing Committee on Finance to hold hearings on this measure. We have made it impossible for them to travel to British Columbia to hear from people and organizations in British Columbia about the HST. They are ramming it through in four hours of committee work. Four hours of committee work is miraculous progress for almost any piece of legislation that would come before the House of Commons. It is certainly miraculous and unheard of in this situation, where we have a tax measure that is resoundingly unpopular with the people on whom it is being imposed.
We need to make sure that the House of Commons and its members are able to do due diligence. Motion No. 8, which we are debating today, does not allow for that kind of diligence to happen in the consideration of this new tax measure. I am glad that the member for Vancouver East moved and that I was able to second an amendment to Motion No. 8 that calls for hearings in British Columbia and Ontario and that calls for a reasonable timeframe for this legislation, which would allow British Columbians and the people of Ontario to have their voices heard about this legislation.
I hope that members will consider that amendment, although given that the Conservatives and their Liberal friends have moved to squelch debate on this issue, I doubt that the amendment has much of a chance in this place. I think it is particularly outrageous that British Columbians do not get a chance to have their voices heard.
There was a time when Conservatives claimed that they were the big defenders of the voices of western Canadians. They said that they came here to Ottawa to make sure the voices of the west would be heard. The west wanted in. Here we are in a case where the west is firmly opposed to something that the Conservatives are bringing forward and they are not even allowing those people to have their voices heard or to have their say on this legislation.
There will be no hearings in British Columbia. There will be no public consultations in British Columbia. The debate has been severely limited here in the House of Commons. None of that would have been acceptable to those people who came to this place saying that the west wanted in. The government has turned out to be just as distant and just as uncaring as those governments it railed against time and time again when it was in opposition. It is amazing how quickly it forgets its roots when it comes to this kind of issue and a taxation issue nonetheless.
I think it is very important that the government also take responsibility for its actions. We hear it stand time and time again, saying that this is a provincial issue and that it has nothing to do with it. If that is the case, why are we standing here having this debate today? Why is it having to bring in these draconian closure and time allocation measures? Why is there a piece of legislation called Bill C-62, amendments to the Excise Tax Act, on the agenda of the House of Commons if it has nothing to do with federal jurisdiction?
It does have something to do with federal jurisdiction. It requires the action of the House and it requires the action of that government to go forward. It should own up to the responsibility for the actions it is taking and own up to the consequences of those actions. British Columbians are going to be paying more in taxation. Every British Columbian is going to be faced with a higher tax bill in the coming weeks and months.
There is no emergency. There is no problem with advancing the government's agenda. There is a severe problem with the idea of no taxation without representation. It is a very sad day when the Conservatives turn their back on their own constituents in British Columbia and their own history of being a populist party that supports letting the western voices be heard here in the House of Commons.