Mr. Speaker, the finance minister is simply wrong. One party has stood up for ordinary Canadians right across the Canada, and that is the NDP.
In Saskatchewan, when the Conservatives brought in the HST, the Romanow government promptly stopped it. Manitoba has refused to put in place the HST. Darrell Dexter, the new premier of Nova Scotia, is reducing it now on all those family essentials after years of seeing Nova Scotian families gouged. One party is standing up for ordinary Canadians, ordinary British Columbians and ordinary Ontarian families.
The reason why the government is bringing in this bludgeoning of closure is because it is running scared. More and more Canadians, people in Ontario and British Columbia, are becoming aware that $2,000 for a family of four is going to be ripped out of their pockets in this massive tax shift to help big corporations.
The reason why the government is running scared and is invoking closure is because it knows that 80% of the people in British Columbia are opposed and 80% of the people in Ontario are opposed.
The reason why the Conservatives are running scared is because they lost in New Westminster—Coquitlam, a massive shift in vote, and they know if they run on the HST, they are going to be soundly defeated.
Why such contempt for ordinary British Columbian families, ordinary Ontarian families? Why does the government not allow a debate in the House—