Madam Speaker, I guess I am the last speaker on this issue tonight.
I hear cheering from across the way from a party that used to care about democracy. It was called the Reform Party and it was founded because its members were tired of the west being shut out and not being heard. It is astonishing to witness tonight the final nail in the coffin of any sense of reform, any sense of democratic input, any sense of direct democracy. It is dead. Its corpse is lying in front of us. It has given up. It is a funeral tonight not only for democracy but for a political movement that has died. It is no more. It has ceased to exist. It does not have a voice.
As one of my friends has said, the fat cats are back. The cats are eating up everything they can find. They are joined by the other cats down the way. Those cats are willing to do whatever they can to feed their fat cat friends.
The tax we are talking about will apply to people's funerals, haircuts, shoes, camps. Families whose kids play hockey in my community will be affected. They find it very difficult to make ends meet now and they will pay a tax on that activity, thanks to the Conservative Party.
This tax will creep into everywhere. It will find every single cent in people's pockets. People will not be able to escape this tax. This tax will apply on things where the PST did not.
I am very upset with our friends down the way, the other cats. Remember those cats? They are the Liberal cats. They said this was a hated sales tax. They used the Prime Minister's last name when referring to the HST. They were going to fight it. That seems like minutes ago in politics, but now we see that they have joined the Conservatives to enable the legislation to go through.
The legislation will apply an 8% tax which people have not had to pay before. How can those members in good conscience say that this is not something they are doing to the people of Ontario and B.C.? Where is the idea of representation taxation? It is gone from the Conservative Party. It does not exist as of tonight.
It is not only about the tax. Let us look at what is happening. Tonight is all about closure. We know what that means. The government is ramming a bill down Parliament's throat.
The body politic of this place will not be able to speak to this legislation to the degree it should. Why? I guess it is that the Conservatives understand that their base does not want this tax. They have been clear. In fact, their cousins in Ontario even decided to have a sit-in. I do not know if they talk to their cousins in Ontario any more, but they should pick up the phone, or in some cases talk over the breakfast table, and ask why it is they hate this tax. Their friends in Ontario might tell them it is regressive and it hurts people in the midst of a recession.
The finance minister tells us time and time again that we have not seen a worldwide recession like this one since the Great Depression. What does the government do for this worldwide recession in Ontario and B.C.? They ding people with an 8% tax. If people are paying 8% more on things they need every day of their lives, it makes their lives more difficult.
What we get from the government is a total reversal on raising taxes and on democracy. When that party sat on this side of the House, every time closure was imposed upon Parliament, it railed and raged against the machine. What is it doing now? Just put the oil on the wheels and let her rip. The Conservatives have been joined by their friends down the way. We see that Tweedledum and Tweedledee are back at it again, making sure that the people of Ontario and B.C. are basically financially and democratically screwed because of this legislation.
What is next? Is this an emergency? Is this enabling legislation a national emergency? For the Conservatives I suppose it is a political emergency. They need to get this thing out very fast to make sure that no one sees this bait and switch. They actually think that the people of Ontario and B.C. will believe that this enabling legislation, using closure, has nothing to do with the Conservatives, that the $6 billion that will be leaving the coffers to go to B.C. and Ontario has nothing to do with them.
The people of Ontario never got to vote on this proposition, and the people of B.C. not only did not get to vote on this proposition but their premier basically lied to them about the fact that he wanted to get a run on this. They never got to vote on it. It was a bait and switch scheme in B.C. and Ontario. People are not stupid. The people of Ontario and B.C. will make sure that this night is not forgotten. The night that the Conservatives put the final nail in the coffin of any notion of democratic reform from the Conservative Party will not be forgotten. To do it, the Conservatives made sure that we would not be able to debate a motion that would have an effect on them.
If this proposition goes through the way the government wants it to go through, it will have undermined any notion of democratic reform from that party. It will undermine the financial viability of everyday people. It will also be saying to Canadians that in this Parliament, two major parties, the fat cats I talked about at the beginning of my speech, put their interests ahead of the interests of everyday people.
I see that some of my friends across the way are laughing. They think it is funny to raise taxes by 8%. They think it is funny to be hypocrites. They fought closure when they were in opposition.
It is not a happy night. It is not a great night. Democracy tonight is on the wane. Democracy tonight has been shut down. Democracy tonight has no voice on the government benches and no voice on the official opposition benches. Democracy tonight will have to be carried on by the NDP benches. We will continue on that fight.