Monte Solberg

[Goods And Services Tax, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of the House the unfair and discriminatory manner in which the GST is applied to physicians and private ambulance services in this country.

Unlike small business people and self-employed Canadians, doctors and ambulance service providers are not allowed to claim GST input credits for necessary medical supplies they purchase to provide urgent and quality health care.

This discriminatory and unjust practice came into being with the GST itself and both the previous Tory and the present Liberal governments have refused to address this legitimate concern.

In fact, Liberal members of the finance committee defeated a Reform amendment proposed to correct this wrong during examination of the GST harmonization bill.

In defeating this motion, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance suggested to his colleagues who were sympathetic to the longstanding grievance that their concerns should be addressed in the provincial fee schedule for their services. This is a shameful abdication of federal responsibility.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise once again and speak to Bill C-70. We continue to have grave concerns about Bill C-70, and I, once again, will run through some of those major concerns.

The reason it is important that the Reform Party take time to run through some of the great concerns Canadians have about Bill C-70 is because the Liberal Party representatives from Atlantic Canada have failed to rise to their feet to defend the people of Atlantic Canada. As I pointed out before, this whole thing came about with the understanding that the GST would be eliminated, that we would not have a GST once the Liberals came to power.

Although the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister denied it after they made the promises, unfortunately for them, television cameras do not lie, videotape does not lie and they were found out. They were revealed to have made promises to get rid of the GST. They had to concoct a wild scheme to try to convince Canadians that the GST was going to disappear. All they did, as members well know, is come up with a billion dollars to bribe Liberal Atlantic Canadian premiers to come on board.

From that sorry beginning, we are once again in a situation where the people of Atlantic Canada are being denied the chance to hold Liberal members of Parliament accountable for a promise. I want to touch on that in a little more detail.

During the finance committee hearings, witnesses came from across the country but in particular from Atlantic Canada. Those witnesses asked why the hearings could not be held in Atlantic Canada. As this legislation has such a profound effect on Atlantic Canada, why did the finance committee not take the time to go to Atlantic Canada to hear from real live Atlantic Canadians?

A handful of people did come from Atlantic Canada, but not everybody can give up a day to come to Ottawa to tell the government their story. These people made the point rather well that in a democracy, people should have the right to representation before taxation, at least the right to consultation before the government bulldozes ahead and implements a taxation system that nobody asked for and nobody wanted. That is a basic right.

It was not very long ago that all kinds of GST rallies were held across the country, where people were protesting the imposition of the GST. Maybe Mr. Speaker was involved in them at one time. I have no idea. People across the country were very upset and protested what the Tories were doing. Indeed, the Liberals made tremendous gains by saying that they would never, ever bring in a tax of that kind that nobody wants. And the people said with one voice: "Don't you dare do that".

Part of the reason that the Tories disappeared off the political landscape was because they brought in a tax that nobody wanted, that people did not ask for. The people felt they were not being represented. Consequently, the Tories were reduced to a mere two seats in the House of Commons.

As Yogi Berra would say: "It is deja vu all over again". The Liberals are bringing in a tax they said they hated, that they would scrap and kill. They have thrown $1 billion at the problem to try and fix it. That did not work. Now we are in a situation where they are denying the people of Atlantic Canada the right to have a say on a tax that will fundamentally affect them.

During the hearings a number of provincial politicians appeared before us. Members would acknowledge that it is really quite unusual to have a number of provincial politicians appear before a committee to protest something that is going to take place in their regions. They had to come to Ottawa was because the Liberals would not allow hearings in Atlantic Canada on a tax that is going to affect those people. The fact that these prominent citizens took the time and effort to come to Atlantic Canada speaks volumes. It says something about the lack of representation that the people of Atlantic Canada are getting from their Liberal MPs. They would not be forced to send provincial representatives to Ottawa if the MPs in Ottawa would stand up for them. But they are completely silent.

In Atlantic Canada where unemployment is a curse that has plagued that region for a generation, we heard witness after witness say that the new harmonization legislation was going force businesses to close.

One gentleman came before us and said that he had already closed eight or nine stores in New Brunswick at a cost of approximately 72 jobs. A witness representing Carleton Cards said 19 stores would be closed. He did not put any caveat on it. If this legislation came in, 19 stores would be closed, again affecting a number of jobs.

We heard from a gentleman from Woolworths Canada that has 125 stores in Atlantic Canada who told us Woolworths could possibly close as many as 30 stores in Atlantic Canada if the legislation came in.

Unbelievably, these people had to come to Ottawa. They could not talk to their local representatives. They could not talk to the Liberal MPs because the MPs could not talk to the finance minister. They could not get their message across. In other words, they were not doing their jobs. To date I have yet to hear one Liberal MP from Atlantic Canada stand and list the concerns of Atlantic Canadians with respect to the harmonization legislation.

If anyone had sat in on the meetings of the finance committee two weeks ago they would know that there are tremendous concerns with this legislation. People are concerned it will kill jobs, close down businesses, create higher prices, less selection for the people of Atlantic Canada. This legislation will have a profound impact on people with low or fixed incomes.

A great debate is raging in the country about child poverty and the government is proposing to put through legislation that will drive up costs on items like gasoline, home heating fuel and utilities. The poorest people in Atlantic Canada simply cannot afford to bear the disproportionate burden that the HST will mean to them when the legislation is implemented.

The point again is that there has been a profound lack of representation from Liberal MPs for people in Atlantic Canada. It has been a dereliction of duty. There have been a number of editorials written in Atlantic Canadian newspapers about the fact that there were not hearings there and that Atlantic Canadian MPs have not been standing up for their constituents.

I just hope that over the course of this debate Liberal MPs across the way have gotten the point, that when they come to Ottawa they are not given their $63,000 so they can sit across the way and shout names, but that they have a job to do. They have a job to do in terms of representing their constituents, to go out and hear what they have to say in the first place and to encourage the finance committee and other committees to visit there when there are bills which

concern that area, and finally to deliver the message to their own government.

We do not come to this place just to collect our salaries, or in the case of the Liberals their MP pensions. We come to the House of Commons to represent our constituents, something the Liberal MPs have completely failed to do with respect to the harmonization legislation.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

The hon. member across the way says he did not say that. The Prime Minister in a town hall meeting denied that he said it too. "I did not say that. Show me where I said it". Unfortunately, for him the public record is very clear because minutes later the CBC showed clips of the Prime Minister saying on national television: "We will kill it. We will scrap it". A clip was shown of him in a radio station during the election campaign saying that the GST would be gone.

I remember very well how the Prime Minister tried to dress down the young woman from Montreal for having the audacity to try and hold him accountable. What a terrible thing to do. That has become a common theme. I will explain a little more about that in just a moment.

During the months that followed the election, members of the government tried to downplay their election promise. They tried to say that what they really said was they would replace the GST. However, they knew that statement was not resonating very well with the public. The opposition was making yards here in the House when we kept pointing out that the government made a promise and it was not being fulfilled.

Finally, the Deputy Prime Minister conducted a poll to see if she could resign and still get re-elected in Hamilton East. She did, indeed, conduct the poll at great expense to the taxpayers. Then a byelection was held that cost a lot of money and, of course, she was subsequently re-elected.

Canadians were expecting more. When members say they are going to resign, it does not mean they are going to resign and run again right away. Nevertheless, that points once again to a lack of accountability in the House of Commons. People want members of Parliament to be responsible for what they say.

A little further along we get to the point where we are having discussions about the harmonized sales tax because the government said: "To get us out of this, we are going to give Atlantic Canada $1 billion". That is what it did. Atlantic Canada had no interest in a harmonized sales tax at all until the $1 billion was slapped down on the table. To get the government out of this promise it slapped down the $1 billion and Atlantic Liberal premiers said: "Maybe we are interested after all". Just show people the colour of money and it is amazing what they will do.

We had that incident. What followed? Ultimately legislation came down and hearings were held. Were hearings held in Atlantic Canada where this was going to affect people? Reform members moved an amendment during the hearings and Liberal MPs said: "We are not going to extend the hearings. We are not going to have hearings in Atlantic Canada," despite the hue and cry from people

in Atlantic Canada who were saying there were all kinds of flaws with the bill.

We heard dozens of witnesses who said: "We have big problems with tax in pricing and big problems with many components of the bill". The fact that people had many problems with the HST and the fact that the government acknowledged there were problems with it and tried to make some changes along the way, points out that Atlantic Canadian MPs were not listening to the people of Atlantic Canada.

Why were the people of Atlantic Canada not allowed to have hearings in Atlantic Canada? This is one of the most fundamental tax changes in the history of Atlantic Canada. Certainly it is taxation without consultation. I would argue it is taxation without representation.

Business group after business group, all kinds of people representing provincial jurisdictions, came before the finance committee and said: "Here is a problem". If Liberal MPs in Atlantic Canada had been representing their constituents that would have never happened because the Liberal MPs would have gone to the finance minister and told him that people have raised these concerns and they should be dealt with.

Mr. Speaker, do you know what happened? They did not do that. They were mute. That is bad enough, but they allowed businesses to close in Atlantic Canada because of this legislation. They said nothing and people in Atlantic Canada lost their jobs. They lost their livelihood.

Debate is ongoing in this country about child poverty. The children in the homes of the people who have lost their jobs already or who probably will, according to business people who appeared before the committee, are going to be in a situation where their parents do not have an income. I would argue that is one of the biggest reasons why we have child poverty. In this case the government is actively encouraging unemployment by not being sensible about the tax in pricing component of this bill. The Liberal MPs in Atlantic Canada have done a horrible job of representing their constituents.

Where were they when all the negative aspects of this bill came forward? People from around the country were forced to come to Ottawa to make their case. That was the job of the Liberal MPs but they were silent. They were mute. Some Atlantic Canadian MPs are cabinet ministers. They sit around the cabinet table. They did nothing: the fisheries minister, the defence minister. Many of them sit around the cabinet table and they were absolutely silent.

Not only is that regrettable but in a modern democracy that is unforgivable. In a modern democracy when people are expected to make very difficult decisions every day in their lives, those same people certainly have the ability to be involved in the debate about the future of their tax system, something that is a fundamental part of everybody's economic well-being. I want to make a strong argument that the Liberal government has completely failed the people of Atlantic Canada in giving them the type of representation that all Canadians deserve.

I have one final point because my time is running short. The government led physicians and the providers of private ambulance services to believe that it was truly interested in restoring tax fairness in the taxation system. It led them to believe that perhaps under this legislation it would amend the act so that physicians and providers of health care would be given equal treatment under the taxation system with many others.

The problem is that physicians and private ambulance services are not allowed to pass on GST costs like other small business people are. Therefore, they have to bear those costs themselves. For doctors it amounts to something like $1,500 per year per physician.

I heard the finance minister yesterday say that he is very concerned about tax fairness and how the government has closed this loophole and that loophole. Is it not interesting that the government is only concerned about tax fairness when it means more money for the government, when it means taking more money out of people's pockets? But when it comes to treating people equally and perhaps having to give a little money back, it does not want to hear about it. Tax fairness? That is not tax fairness. Tax fairness is only when we take money away, and I think that is wrong.

I make the point that again that the government has an obligation to treat everybody equally under the tax code, including physicians and private ambulance services.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak once again to Bill C-70, in particular to this group of motions.

There seems to be a common theme not only in how the bill came into being, but in the whole process that surrounds Bill C-70. It really explains why people are so concerned about the harmonization legislation. The common theme is a general lack of accountability, a lack of being able to hold the government accountable, and a series of gaps that have made the GST a real tar baby in terms of governments being able to deal with it and not draw all kinds of flack.

Let me start by going back a bit in time. I want to follow up on comments that were made by members of the Bloc Quebecois. First, we need to remember how this legislation came about in the first place. In 1993 during the election campaign the Prime Minister and the current Deputy Prime Minister said that under a Liberal government the GST would be gone, it would be eliminated. Of course, that is not the case.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Yesterday we indicated that we hoped to wring a concession out of the government that if it would not move time allocation we would agree to go along with the request not to read this entire set of amendments into the record. The government did not give us that assurance which is unfortunate because it has moved time allocation dozens of times in this House.

Having said that, we feel it is not fair to the Speaker or to the people of the country who are waiting to hear the debate on this bill. If members on the other side and in the Bloc would go along with it, we would be happy to give our concurrence to allow the Speaker to dispense with the reading of the amendments.

[Excise Tax, February 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-70 and, in particular, some of the motions that are being moved with respect to Bill C-70.

I must say that although this is the new year, 1997, and my first speech here in the new year, it is unfortunately not very new legislation. Although there have been some amendments which had been discussed in the previous year, and although there has been a hue and cry from many corners of the country about this legislation, it remains substantially unchanged. Therefore it is quite unacceptable to the Reform Party.

I want to start by touching on some of the major objections that we have heard not only from people in Atlantic Canada but from national retailers who do business in Atlantic Canada. I do not know if members have been following the papers, but it is absolutely flabbergasting to me that the government still insists on pushing forward with many components of this bill even though there is a groundswell of opposition to it.

Probably the most obvious example of that is the tax in pricing component. During the finance committee hearings a couple of weeks ago here in Ottawa we had retailers from across the country come to Ottawa and say to the government repeatedly they do not have big concerns about harmonized sales tax with the single caveat that it should not include tax in pricing at this time. Some of them had other concerns and there were some minor objections that they raised with respect to other issues, but with almost with one voice they said they do not see any point in bringing in tax in pricing at this time when it is only going to happen in one part of the country. They raised a number of objections.

One of the objections they raised, which is so obvious, is that if we bring it in in one part of the country but not in the rest of the country then we do not have tax simplification, which is what the government said it was aiming for, but tax complication and confusion. Now we have different prices for the same goods on different sides of the border, depending on whether one is outside of Atlantic Canada or inside Atlantic Canada. When I say Atlantic Canada I should exclude Prince Edward Island because it did not become part of this deal. People obviously have big concerns about this. It is going to add all kinds of regulatory burden.

If it were only regulatory burden that would be bad enough, but business leader after business leader came before the finance committee and said that it was going to mean extra costs and extra costs can be reflected in several ways. It will mean higher prices for consumers. It will mean that people will have to be laid off or in some cases businesses will have to close.

I see the parliamentary secretary here. He was at the same meeting I was at where the representative from Carleton Cards said that they would close 19 stores if this legislation came in as it was because they had 19 stores that were marginal, stores that were either just barely making it or slightly unprofitable. They said that this legislation would mean that they would no longer be profitable and would have no prospect of becoming profitable and therefore would close.

Obviously in Atlantic Canada where the economy has been in a shambles for a number of years, this legislation is going to hurt those people and there is no reason for it. So far the government has been unable to come up with a single shred of evidence to explain why tax in pricing has to come in at this time in Atlantic Canada. There is not one piece of evidence.

At one point a poll was conducted which, by the way, it was suggested was worded so that somehow the people of Atlantic Canada wanted tax in pricing. When the poll was looked at closely, it was discovered very early on when people discovered that tax in pricing was going to mean extra costs for them, the support dropped. Actually only a minority of people in Atlantic Canada, even according to the Nova Scotia government poll, supported tax in pricing. That is a major concern.

It is going to cost jobs. Woolworth Canada has said it could close as many as 30 per cent of its 125 stores in Atlantic Canada. Another group has already closed a number of stores in New Brunswick specifically because of tax in pricing. Again, I do not understand why the government is going after the people of Atlantic Canada and hurting them with this legislation.

The next point I want to make is that for the life of me I cannot understand why, when I proposed a motion in the finance committee that the hearings be extended and moved to Atlantic Canada where people will be most affected by this legislation, the Liberal members voted against taking the hearings to Atlantic Canada. To me that is unbelievable. Here is legislation, probably the most important tax legislation to affect the people of Atlantic Canada in a generation, and they are not given a voice on what kinds of changes should be made or whether or not the legislation should even go ahead. It is certainly taxation without consultation, and I would argue it is taxation without representation.

I heard one Liberal member say: "In my riding of Atlantic Canada I personally put out some notices that said we would fly people from Atlantic Canada to come to the meeting". That is ridiculous. People in Atlantic Canada have a right to demand that their government come to them when it is proposing a taxation system that in some cases will have dramatic effects on their own personal economic well-being.

One of the effects of the harmonized sales tax is that people on fixed incomes in particular will be hard hit. Those people who are on fixed incomes and who perhaps are disabled should have a right to be in their own community, whether it is Truro, Nova Scotia, or St. John's, Newfoundland, or Saint John, New Brunswick, wherever it is they should have a right to call the government to account in their own community. They should not have to apply to see if the government will bring them to Ottawa and take a day or two away from their families. That is fundamentally wrong. It is contrary to democracy.

I do not want to try to anticipate what the government is going to do with respect to limiting debate on this legislation. If on the one hand the government does not let people in Atlantic Canada have hearings on this legislation, and on the other hand the government tells Canadians it is not going to let the opposition point to the flaws in the legislation and introduces time allocation, then people will have every right to be as cynical as they are today about the lack of democracy in this country.

When we go door to door, people say that we have an elected dictatorship. If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times. The government has a chance to prove that is not the case, to a small degree this time, if it says it will not introduce time allocation. I will not go on about that any longer.

I do want to touch on the issue of GST on books. I see a Liberal colleague across the way who has spoken out on the GST on reading materials. The government had a prime opportunity this time around to introduce new legislation that would fulfil a red book promise, a promise to the Don't Tax Reading Coalition, a promise that was made in two successive Liberal policy conventions that they would scrap the GST on reading materials.

Instead, the GST will now be doubled on reading materials in Atlantic Canada. No matter how we look at it, that is not fulfilling the promise. In fact, it is mocking the people to whom the Liberals made the promise before, that they would get rid of the GST. There is just no other way to put it.

Mr. Speaker, I know my time is running short. I will simply conclude by saying that this legislation is wrong and that these amendments do not fix the bill. I encourage all members in this House and especially members from Atlantic Canada to scold the government by not voting for it.

[Finance, December 11th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in 1993 the government did promise jobs, jobs, jobs. Three years later those things have not happened.

The evidence is clear. If one brings down a plan that clearly states that there will be a balanced budget and tax relief, the stimulus effect is immediate. There is evidence from around the world to demonstrate that is the case because finally investors have the confidence to begin spending again in the economy.

We need not speculate about this. There are many examples around the world. Probably the best example is right here in Canada. When the Government of Alberta announced that it was going to balance the budget and begin running surpluses, there was an immediate influxof investment into the economy because finally someone had a plan to deal with the problem, something that this government is missing.

People are paying for it with their jobs. People are paying for it with lower standards of living. The average family has taken a $3,000 national pay cut since the government came to power according to the Fraser Institute. We have had a massive attack by the government on transfers to the provinces of $7 billion. This government has closed more hospitals than all of the provinces combined. That is unacceptable.

That is the price of delay when the government cannot get its act together and recognize the importance of balancing the budget and starting to deal with the tremendous problems that were left not only by the Conservative government but by the Liberals before them as well.

[Finance, December 11th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the word extreme. An extremist is anyone who happens to be winning an argument with a Liberal.

I want to make sure the member understands and does not take too much credit where credit is not due. The reason interest rates have fallen to this point is because the economy is so soft. That is why there are tremendous unemployment problems in this country. That is why interest rates have continued to fall. Everyone would acknowledge that the economy has been extremely soft.

Exports have done well because the dollar has been low but no one will say that the domestic economy has been anything but extremely soft. I do not think the hon. member should be taking too much pleasure in that fact. The same thing applies to inflation.

I will answer the member's question very specifically by pointing to what the Government of New Brunswick has done. It has acknowledged that low interest rates alone cannot fix the problem.

That is why that Liberal government has introduced income tax cuts.

Note that it has a balanced budget. Note that it has the capacity to do that. Most people would acknowledge that Frank McKenna in New Brunswick has done a good job with that province. It should be a model for the federal government. Our approach parallels exactly what is being proposed in New Brunswick. When you give people more money for their pockets they will start to spend it. That will create jobs.

The member talked about the fresh start plan.

The fresh start plan will provide people with $15 billion in tax relief. It gives them more money in their pockets so they can go out and spend money in the economy, save for their retirement, look after their children's education, take a holiday once in awhile. It allows small businesses to create the jobs that are so necessary for the people, certainly of Atlantic Canada, Ontario, the prairies and British Columbia.

People everywhere are suffering today under this government's policies. It is about time Canadians had the chance to take the dollars that the government uses right now and spend them on things that are their priorities, not the government's.

[Finance, December 11th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to the report of the Standing Committee on Finance on the prebudget hearings.

I started speaking on this matter a day or two ago and, unfortunately, I was interrupted, so I am back again. I will begin where I left off. I left off by saying that, in my judgment, the government was searching for the answer but it would not tell people what the question was. I want to advance the debate a bit beyond that now.

This whole debate will be seen in a new light today as a result of the Prime Minister's town hall meeting last night. Last night we saw a side of the Prime Minister which I have not seen before. We saw a Prime Minister who seemed almost disdainful of the people who came forward, whose lives were in disarray because they were unemployed or because they had fallen on hard times. That stands in stark contrast to the words of the committee report.

The chairman of the finance committee is sitting across from me. I am certain he believes very strongly the words that are in his report which emphasize how much he cares about people who are unemployed, the poor and people who have fallen on hard times. However, I did not see that in the Prime Minister's responses to

questions from regular Canadians last night. Those people have fallen on hard times.

I want to talk about these issues one by one. These issues are very important to Canadians.

Last night at the town hall debate there was a graph shown on television which indicated that 42 per cent of Canadians said the number one priority they saw for government was unemployment. It is a huge problem. The Prime Minister brushed the whole issue aside.

In the finance committee report the government does speak of the unemployed, but mostly it boasts about the job the government has done in creating an environment so that the economy can create jobs. Last night I think that claim was really challenged by reporters at CBC when they pointed out that since the government came to power, only 109,000 jobs truly had been created outside of the natural growth in the workforce. Therefore it amounts to only about 30,000 jobs a year since the government came to power, which allowed the unemployment rate to come down to about 10 per cent, still a double digit.

I know I speak for Canadians when I say 10 per cent unemployment is completely unacceptable. When we look at the regional breakdowns it is even worse. In Saskatchewan there is 6 per cent unemployment; we are getting there. But in Atlantic Canada, Cape Breton, 22 per cent, as the lady claimed last night. That is unbelievable.

What did the Prime Minister say in response to that lady's queries about what can be done to help people get a job? He said "we have ACOA, some ACOA grants". I think we have been trying ACOA grants for 20 years and they have done nothing to fix the unemployment problem in Atlantic Canada.

He said "perhaps you can start a business". But as the lady correctly pointed out, when you are unemployed you do not have the money to run out and start a business. These are common sense responses. And with respect to the Prime Minister, after 33 years in this place and serving as a big city lawyer, I think has has become too far removed from the common people. I think he has forgotten what it is like to come from humble beginnings. The people who spoke last night were simply not satisfied with the Prime Minister's answers.

I think it would be irresponsible to criticize without offering some answers of our own. We have suggested there is another approach. We have suggested that the way to deal with the problem of unemployment is to create an environment, as the Prime Minister says, where the economy will produce real jobs. But the government has not done that. That is not done simply by reducing the deficit ever so slowly but not giving people any of the benefits of a balanced budget and surpluses.

We are proposing, and I think it is what a lot of Canadians want to hear, is balance the budget, shrink the size of government, get rid of the wasteful programs; and there are many of them. Give the provinces some of the responsibilities which are theirs in the Constitution and which the federal government has never done a good job with. When that is done, a surplus will be run. When that is done, people can be offered lower taxation.

The Reform plan is to download $15 billion in tax relief to Canadians across the country so that the people in Atlantic Canada, where taxes are unreasonably high and are going to get even worse under this harmonization agreement that the Prime Minister spoke of today in question period, will benefit tremendously from lower taxes. The problem with the Atlantic Canadian economy is it is so bound up by taxes that it cannot possibly create the amount of jobs necessary to help the people in Cape Breton, Newfoundland, all the regions of Atlantic Canada.

One of the saddest commentaries on the failure of the government to deal with the problems that seize the country is today's release from Stats Can that says an estimated 1.472 million children liven in "straitened circumstances" in 1995, in poverty, up 110,000 from the previous year. In the finance committee report government members pointed out that child poverty is a problem. It certainly is but words are not enough. During the last election campaign the words were jobs, jobs, jobs. What has happened? Virtually nothing. This time apparently it is going to be child poverty, but words do not put food on the table.

The government report says that not too much can be done. Maybe some money can be put into a working income supplement, maybe it could be enhanced. That is not enough. The Reform plan, $15 billion in tax relief, would take 1.2 million low income Canadians completely off the tax rolls. That is how people who are struggling just to get by are helped. That is how the poor are helped. That is how children living in poverty are helped. That is how 1.2 million Canadians would be taken completely off the tax rolls. That is the Reform fresh start.

Just a couple of minutes ago, as we went through Routine Proceedings, we heard petition after petition make reference to the GST. Probably a dozen or 15 members of Parliament got up with petitions in their hands saying that the government should fulfil its promise to get rid of the GST on reading materials.

Unless I missed it, I did not see that addressed in the finance committee report. Sometimes when things are not said it speaks volumes about the approach to an issue. This was a blatant promise

that was broken. Nowhere is it addressed in the finance committee report.

It is important that this is brought to the attention not only of Canadians who voted for the government on the basis of this promise but also the government MPs.

It is incumbent on government MPs to stand up and represent their constituents. They know very well that the Prime Minister wrote to the Don't Tax Reading Coalition just before the last election and said that he would get rid of the GST on books. It is still there. Yes, the government made some minor changes but it is still there. It is another broken promise. It should have been addressed.

The GST is barely mentioned in the finance committee report but Canadians had some hard questions for the Prime Minister last night. We had the spectacle of a waitress from Montreal standing up meekly at first, trying to challenge the Prime Minister on his GST promise, and what did he do? He attempted to dress her down. He tried to corner her and suggest somehow that she did not know what she was talking about. But she knew a lot better than he did what she was talking about.

She pointed out that the Prime Minister had said many, many times that he would scrap the GST and it was the basis on which she had voted for him. What did the Prime Minister do? He did not say: "You're right. I am sorry". He did not do what the Deputy Prime Minister had to do. He certainly did not resign. What did he do? He tried to deny that he had said all the things that a couple of minutes later appeared on the television news.

I would think, after having gone through the debacle of the Mulroney government and the myriad broken promises and the myriad times when people completely lost faith in government, the Prime Minister, the hon. member from Shawinigan, would have learned his lesson. Instead he let pride get in his way. He denied that he had said the things that ended up on the TV news a few minutes later and again, people have a very good reason to not trust government.

I wonder how many million people watched last night. I wonder how many million people saw a side of the Prime Minister that they had never seen before. We are all amused when the Prime Minister puts on his little guy from Shawinigan act. He is very amusing. He seems like a very nice man, but last night, although sometimes the words were there, there was a curled lip, there was an arrogant attitude. I did not see any sympathy at all for what the people out there were asking about.

After what we saw last night this whole debate has been put in a new light. I hope Canadians remember this as we approach the next election.

[Taxation, December 11th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised the Prime Minister did not get up to address that question. He should be embarrassed to get up after that performance last night

For almost 33 years straight, the Prime Minister has been part of the elite of Canada. He has been a big city lawyer and a professional politician. He has no idea what people go through in the real world out there.

Last night he chided people who were unemployed. Today, Stats Canada tells us that child poverty has rocketed upward in the last year.

Is the Prime Minister's `them's the breaks' answer all he can muster for the 1.5 million unemployed people out there today, all the poor people who have been revealed by Stats Canada and all the people his government has completely abandoned?