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She added that Liberals have “run away” from the issue over the past few years because they were afraid of Tory reprisals.

“Well, I’m not afraid of Stephen Harper. The right policies are the right policies.”

Not all Canadians will like the idea of paying more GST, Hall Findlay acknowledged. But the third-place Liberal party won’t win back support until it starts showing some conviction on difficult issues, she said.

“Not everybody in this country is going to agree with everything, but they’re certainly not going to support a party that doesn’t have the courage to stand up for what it believes. And if we don’t feel we can stand up for what we believe because we’re somehow afraid of Stephen Harper’s attack ads, then we have a way bigger problem.”

Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals’ last permanent leader, ran into trouble on the GST just days after taking the party’s helm in 2008 when he refused to take a possible increase off the table. He was pounded by the Tories and eventually backtracked.

Nevertheless, his initial openness to a GST hike became fodder for one of the Tories’ subsequent attack ads, which ominously dubbed Ignatieff a “Tax Hiker.”

These guys have absolutely no credibility when it comes to fiscal prudence

Hall Findlay argued that Harper’s GST cut pushed Canada into a structural deficit even before the 2008 recession hit. She stressed she wouldn’t raise it again now, when the economy is still sluggish, but she would “absolutely” consider doing so once the economy rebounds.

As for the inevitable Conservative charge that she’s a tax-and-spend Liberal, Hall Findlay said she wouldn’t use the additional billions in revenue a GST hike would produce to increase government spending. She’d use it to eliminate the deficit racked up by the Harper government and start paying down the national debt.