Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing for that good question and her very good work on the point of sale tax exemption for first nations in Ontario. That is an absolutely critical issue and a treaty right.
I heard the members opposite yelling that this is provincial jurisdiction. I still say that if it is provincial jurisdiction, why are we debating it in the House of Commons? Why is Bill C-62 before the House? If the federal government has no role in this, we would not be having this debate.
When it comes to small business, we know from the Butchart Gardens study that a lot of labour-intensive businesses will not have the same kinds of throughputs that other industries have. They are very concerned about the impact on their businesses.
Hairdressers say that most people go in for haircuts every six weeks and they are expecting people to start putting them off for eight weeks because people in British Columbia cannot afford that extra 7% and in Ontario that 8%. That is an additional 7% or 8% on these services. For many small businesses, their profit margins are very narrow, so they simply cannot afford this additional tax.