Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Following World War I, the Canadian government introduced some pretty stiff taxes to help pay for the war effort. Included in these were things like luxury cars, boats, clothes and jewellery,
Mr. Speaker. Over the years, those excise taxes have been removed on everything except jewellery. Now this excise tax costs us 10 percent of retail for any item over $3. It is hard to consider today, Mr. Speaker, that that can be considered a luxury tax. The information I have is that 50 percent of jewellery purchases are actually $100 and they are made by low and middle-income Canadians, Mr. Speaker, so there really doesn't seem to be much use for this tax to be around anymore.
Now, this is a pretty interesting piece of work for us here in the Northwest Territories as we look at growing a cutting and polishing industry, based on Canadian diamonds, Mr. Speaker.
I want to acknowledge today the work of a federal MP, Mr. John Duncan, the Progressive Conservative Member for Vancouver Island North, who has managed to get a private Members' bill through to second reading -- it's now before the Finance committee in Ottawa -- to get rid of this tax. It is something that we really should be getting behind and supporting. I know that the jewellery industry across Canada has been looking for this kind of action for many, many years. The elimination of this tax might result, from what I'm told, in something in the neighbourhood of an $80 million loss for the government. But let's put that up against the $500 million the government is now getting in revenues just from our diamond mining alone, Mr. Speaker, and that means that it's time to axe this tax. Thank you very much.
---Applause