Conservatives near majority!
- Thread starter crit13
- Start date
Sorry liberals never lied about the GST. they kept their promise. That was just a myth and fear mongering from the sour conservatives.
http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/party/liberal/chretien/red-book.html
Contrary to popular belief, the Liberals did not promise to remove the tax altogether. Instead, the Red Book commits to replacing the GST “with a system that generates equivalent revenues, is fairer to consumers and to small business, minimizes disruption to small business, and promotes federal-provincial fiscal cooperation and harmonization.”
However, most provinces did not sign on. Furthermore, it became clear that a large segment of the public thought the Liberals promised to abolish the tax altogether. It didn’t help matters when the media began playing a campaign speech in which Chrétien flatly stated that the tax would be “scrapped.” There was an enormous amount of protest when the public realized that the GST was here to stay.
The great GST flap led to Liberal Sheila Copps resigning her Hamilton seat and running again. She said she'd been shamed to it after witnessing local reaction to the Chretien about-turn. Suffice it to say it led to her re-election and one of the most celebrated political cartoons in Canadian newspaper history. Hamilton East voters, after Copps' re-election were shown in an editorial page cartoon in the Toronto Sun, as all having asses for heads.
