Mr. Speaker, when the Conservatives and Liberals bring in the harmonized sales tax, or HST, next July, families across Ontario will be taxed at a higher rate on children's vitamins, on newspapers, even on coffee. That is right. This is a tax on our trip to Tim Hortons. If we want to hire a lawyer to fight the HST, well, that will be taxed, too.
Why is this new tax being foisted on Ontarians? Because the federal Conservatives and provincial Liberals want to shift the tax burden from the wealthiest banks and oil companies to middle-income families, the very people most at risk from the decline in our Ontario industrial economy.
Along with Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, we are fighting the HST because it would harm Ontario workers and their families.
Ontarians will not take this and neither will we. It is time to stop the HST, stop the attack on the middle class and stop the McGuinty-Harper tax grab.