Yes, Mr. Speaker, talking about relevance, why do we not talk to some of the students in our region and find out the costs that they will incur with this new tax and then we can talk about relevance.
I am familiar with the region my hon. colleague represents and I am going to get to aboriginal people which has extreme relevance to this debate, so stay tuned and hopefully he can pay attention.
When we are talking about students not only are we facing increased tuition fees and some of the highest rates of student debt but we are asking them to pay more money when it comes to textbooks and the food they need. We are seeing an increase of food banks at universities. Now we are going to impose a tax to make it more difficult for students who are already going into debt to achieve an education and contribute to our country. We are making it more difficult for them as a result of the HST.
The other group of individuals who have been so sorely missed in this entire debate by the federal government is first nations. I am proud to have stood with many of my colleagues in the House from the NDP to talk about the utter disgrace in the way that the federal government, which has a fiduciary obligation to first nations and a treaty obligation to first nations, has excluded them from any consultation and any debate.
It is shameful that first nations, which under the treaty are guaranteed the right to tax exemption in the case of the GST, will no longer have that right in terms of point of sale. It is absolutely horrendous that we are not only seeing a tax being imposed that would wipe away that treaty right, but we are seeing a complete and utter lack of consultation.
Have we learned nothing, from the way we work with first nations, regarding the most basic practice of the duty to consult? Chief's organizations in Ontario have been extremely vocal in this area. I had the opportunity to speak with chiefs that I have the honour of representing at the Assembly of First Nations congress yesterday. Many of them were also recognizing that this is a dangerous precedent. I am shocked to hear members of the federal government talk about this matter being up to the provinces when we know that federally it is obligated to work with first nations, obligated to respect treaty rights of which tax exemption at the federal level is most definitely one of them.
The challenge is that the substance of the tax does not work, the imposition on many vulnerable people, people who are already struggling to make it through, struggling even more as a result of the recession. We have a situation without consultation.
Before I finish I would like to note how proud I am to come from a province like Manitoba where we have an NDP provincial government that has stated clearly why it does not support a harmonized sales tax. It recognizes that it is unfair to the average Manitoban and notes the benefit that it does not provide to people who are struggling to make it by.
I would hope that across the country we could benefit from voices that are standing just as we are in the House to say no, no to a tax that does not work for Canadians, no to a process that excludes Canadians, and no to something that is going to put us further behind as we try as a country to move forward.