Mr. Speaker, my colleague brought the scope of provincial NDP governments into his speech, so let us talk about that.
In Manitoba, there was legislation that required a referendum prior to a PST increase. The NDP government, even though it campaigned against a PST increase, increased the PST. It had to go and try to gut the legislation requiring the referendum, but still increased the PST before that law was changed, even though a survey by Angus Reid at the time said that 74% of Manitobans wanted a referendum and 72% disagreed with raising the PST. Why was that? It was because common-sense Canadians know that raises to general consumption taxes are a bad thing.
I am asking the following for my colleague. Given the absolutely disastrous reign of the Manitoba NDP in my home province of Manitoba—it has been in power since I was 19 years old—including the loss of jobs, the instability in social programming, and the absolute disaster that the government has been, how can my colleague bring provincial politics into his speech and think that the NDP has absolutely any credibility whatsoever to speak to taxation issues?