Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster.
People watching, people listening, may be wondering why an MP from Manitoba would be getting up to participate in a debate that is so very much focused on two of our provinces. It is with a real concern and it is in solidarity with my colleagues from B.C. and Ontario that I stand to point out that not only is the process by which the government is ramming through and silencing any opportunity for debate a problem but it is really the substance of the harmonized sales tax that is a real problem.
It is a real problem not just for the people in these two provinces and the provinces that have already had this tax imposed on them but also for provinces like Manitoba, which is the one that has stood up and said no, it is not going to put up with this new tax.
It is about recognizing that Manitoba and other provinces might be, down the line, subjected to even greater pressure if Ontario and B.C. are to accept this tax. It is about joining our voices to say how many ways the process, the substance of this whole harmonized sales tax debate, is flawed.
Many of my colleagues have stood in the House, the vast majority of us, time and time again to talk about how this is the wrong tax at the wrong time, something that has great resonance where I come from. Certainly, it is a regressive tax, as we know. Really, it places the burden on consumers at one of the worst times in recent history to bring in a new tax, a new tax that increases taxes on consumable items, items that people cannot go without: food, basic goods, basic services and transactions that average Canadians must make in their daily lives.
Instead of looking at taxing corporations and private companies that benefit from the labour and the resources in our country, this tax goes after the people who are suffering the most as a result of this recession.
This tax also has a very disproportionate impact on certain parts of our population, and I would like to speak in particular in terms of two areas: students and young people, and aboriginal people.
When we talk about students and young people, I am the critic for youth and also post-secondary education. This House has a pretty pathetic record in terms of talking about the challenges that young people face in general, but nowhere is this more the case than the imposition of the HST.
Young people, as we know in the case of this recession, have suffered much but in a very different way than many other generations. While we hear of the great job losses inflicted upon middle aged income earners, it is young people who have not gotten the jobs because they do not exist anymore. It is young people who are the first to be laid off. It is young people who have to put up with increased temporary, part-time, contract work, more than any other generation.
To have young consumers take on a tax at a time when they are making even less, when they are living in a much more insecure situation and looking at a very insecure job market, is extremely unfair.
If we look at the situation of students, I have had the opportunity to rise in this House on behalf of my party, the NDP, whose members are the only ones talking about the challenges that students are facing. We are seeing tuition fees increase at historic rates in Canada. Ontario, one of the provinces that is--