NEWS RELEASE  

March 21, 1996  For Immediate Release 

BROKEN GST PROMISE PROVES WE NEED TO CHANGE THE GAME NOT JUST THE PLAYERS  

"Don't you think it was dishonest for the Liberals to get elected by saying they would abolish the GST?"  

Yorkton - Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, and his Reform colleagues exposed the Liberal Party as an old-style political party, just like the Progressive Conservatives before them. Namely, a party that will do and say anything to get elected and then break their promise when they get into power. "I got into politics to change the system so my children and grandchildren could have a brighter future. This can't happen until and unless politicians keep their promises," said Breitkreuz. "The system is sick and under the Liberals, it's just getting sicker. If we don't change the system -- we won't change much else in this country."  

Using one of the Reform Party's few "Supply Days" for this debate, Reform MP Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Alberta) introduced the following Motion: That in the opinion of this House, the GST should be "killed, scrapped, abolished." "This is exactly what Jean Chretien, Sheila Copps and Paul Martin said they would do, but unfortunately, it's the Reform Party who had to introduce this Motion," reminded Breitkreuz. True to form the Liberals voted against the Reform Motion at the end of yesterday's debate.  

Here is the media's record of the Liberal's promise regarding the GST: 

"I would abolish the GST." 

- then Liberal MP and now Finance Minister Paul Martin [Montreal Gazette, April 4, 1990] 

"If the GST is not abolished under a Liberal Government, I will resign."  

- then Liberal MP and now Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps [CBC TV Electronic Town Hall Meeting October 1993] 

"The Liberals will scrap the goods and services tax if they win the next general election."

- then Liberal Leader Jean Chretien and now Prime Minister of Canada. [Toronto Star, October 29, 1990] 

"We hate it and we will kill it."  

- Prime Minister Jean Chretien [Ottawa Citizen, May 2, 1994] 

Compare the Liberal broken promise with Reform's 1990 commitment to beleaguered Canadian taxpayers which remains unchanged to this day: "The Reform Party opposes any increases in the rate of the GST, and favours a staged elimination of the GST as a part of an overall program of tax reform and spending restraint once the budget is balanced." [Source: Reform Party Blue Book Principles and Policies - 1990 to 1996] 

"Truth and honesty and politics are not incompatible. The Canadian people deserve a government that will keep it's promises. In the next year or so voters will have another chance to change our government's decision making process from an elitist, top-down, autocratic system to a truly democratic, bottom-up process," advised Breitkreuz. "Free votes for all MPs, citizen initiated referenda, and giving voters the right to recall their Member of Parliament is our way of making sure all MPs will be held truly accountable to their constituents in the House of Commons."  

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For more information please call: 

Yorkton: (306) 782-3309 

Ottawa: (613) 992-4394 

Results of Vote  

130 Liberals voted against the Reform Motion 

- not one Liberal voted for our motion - some Liberals missed the vote 

Bloc voted for the Reform Motion