Madam Speaker, the actions of the Conservative government, with the help of its Liberal henchmen, have been devastating for the Canadian economy. We had already bled off hundreds of thousands of jobs prior to the current recession setting in. The addition of this $6 billion tax on the backs of those who can least afford it will simply exacerbate the situation.
People are on fixed income. A lot of people have lost their jobs. A lot of people are on social assistance. People cannot find 8% more for their heating oil. Yet that is exactly what the Conservatives have decided to do, to use the very weakness they created by their choices and their policies, where they killed manufacturing and forestry, to go in now for the kill on the Liberal governments in Ontario and B.C., their willing co-conspirators.
It is commonplace that for a scam to work, it requires two dishonest people. It requires the person conceiving the scam, and the Conservatives have said from the beginning what their plan is with regard to this tax, and it requires the henchmen in the Liberal Party, both here and in the provinces. It requires two dishonest people and that is what they have.