Mr. Speaker, never before in the history of Parliament has someone spoken so much and known so little. He does not even realize that it is impossible for any government agency to raise taxes without the approval of Parliament. Parliament exists today precisely because the Englishmen who created the tradition made it impossible for the Crown to tax what the people had not approved. This is an 800-year-old rule of Parliament. The government has given the legal power to the CRTC to impose a streaming tax and has the legal power to overturn that tax any time it wants. It needs to stop running away from its own policy decisions.
The member says he is going to wrap himself in the Canadian flag. Give me a break. We do not defend sovereignty by raising taxes on Canadian consumers. We fight for Canadians by lowering their taxes.
