Legislative Assembly people who have to bear the increase in sales tax will also say that they find it the hardest here to bear these taxes because the earnings of those people are the lowest in Canada and for that reason I would probably explain, or I would probably find that their tax is the highest increase of any place in Canada . The Provincial tax this year is an 8rr increase. That's a high rate of increase in taxes in one year. In Ottawa, a short time ago, we got a V ,'c increase which everybody was pretty dis¬ appointed about. In the City of Charlottetown we got a 27%r;'p increase in taxes. This all hits the people that I represent in this City. They have a 27%% increase in taxes and that was blamed by the authorities of the City on the Government of this Province so that we can put down two strikes against the Government of this Province in respect to the increase of taxes. Eight percent for Provincial taxes, 21Vzc/r for City taxes and in addition to that our friends in Ottawa, who are their friends, have 3% increase. Now, let us see where these taxes apply. First of all, we have the Sales Tax which, I'd say, is an 8% increase. Now, that is going to have to be paid by the people who are getting the lowest wages in this country, in the whole of Canada . These people will have to pay that and it is going to be a severe burden to them. In addition to that, with respect to tobacco tax, a very, very sharp increase and the worst of all, of course, is the gasoline tax. This is going to hit the farmers of this Province. Some things are exempt, of course, some of the gasoline and some of the diesel that they use is exempt but every time that they have to go to market or go to the store, or go to the city to do business, what do they have to do? They have to buy gasoline and they have to pay this 3c extra tax. I think they're trying to make records but I'm afraid those records are not records which any Government should be proud of when they punish the people who can ill afford to pay these taxes. Let us see what happens in agriculture. As I said before, a Budget should be designed and calculated to assist and develop the industries of the country. Now, what do we find with respect to agriculture ? Last year there was $1,980,142 dollars voted for agriculture, Department of Agriculture. This year there's $1,817,633. There's a decline in the provision for our basic industry of $162,509. Now, if anybody is looking for evidence of lack of priority I'm sure that is one of them. Cut down the provision for improvement in our agricultural economy when it should be increased. It should be studied to calculate where something can be done to improve, especially the marketing end of our agricultural industry. Now, let us go to the next one. Fisheries — last year the provision for fisheries was $379,689. This year it's $338,589. A decrease of $41,000. Not a very big decrease but still it shows what is happening. The records show, we have a record here of the fish landings, the fish landings last year were down. Now, instead of doing something to increase this, they have cut the estimate of expenditure in that Department and there was a meeting of the Fisheries Federation of East Prince on this subject a day or so after the Budget was delivered and we find that the Fisheries President protested the Budget cut. The Patriot, Thursday, March 21st, says the President of the Fish¬ eries Federation last night protested the cut in the Provincial Government Budget for the Department of Fisheries. Another industry, tourist industry, this gasoline tax and his tobacco tax and this sales tax is all going to have a slow down effect on our tourist industry. There's no question about the result of what that will be. They come here for a certain length of time but they will stay a shorter time due to the fact that things will be higher and that will be the approximate end of it from the tourists view point. The man that's here, the one with a family or the man and the woman that are here, they will find that the money they have cal¬ culated for their holiday here will be that much less. It'll get them that much less in lodgines. that much less gasoline and that much less supplies while in the Prov¬ ince of Prince Edward Island . And let us look, then, at the position the tourist operator will be in. He will have to contend with these taxes. He will have to in¬ crease his staff to keep account of these taxes and there seems to be enough book¬ keeping to be done by all those small businesses. But it's going to be increased now because if he has a little store and somebody comes in and buys an ice cream cone he'll have to keep a cent off that or two cents off that and he'll have to keep those books and I submit that this is going to go against the operator of our tourist business and it's going to increase the cost that they will have to bear in order to carry on their business and I submit that that is the third industry that is seriously damaged by the Budget which we are considering. There should be a plan, and we had a plan when we were in Government, whereby the important things were selected for prior consideration and that's where the word 'priority" comes from. The import¬ ant things first. Now, I submit that here they've had no consideration. They may —306-