Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention but I want to call him on something that he mentioned in his comments.
First, he justified the harmonization based on the fact that it is a more efficient use of taxation and the processing of tax dollars and, second, that harmonizing the GST and the VAT or PST would make it more effective in terms of reducing the overall tax rate, yet it is the position of his party and his leader that taxes should be raised.
As members know, it is his party that suggested that the GST should be increased again from the reductions that we as a Conservative government have implemented. It is also his party that came forward and suggested a carbon tax. It is also his leader who very recently suggested that taxes in Canada are supposed to go up, not down.
How does the member justify that patent hypocrisy to, on the one hand, say that it is more efficient to harmonize the GST and PST because it will lower the overall tax rate and yet, at the same time, suggest that taxes in Canada should be increased, whether it is carbon taxes or the GST?