Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting debate today.
The Liberal member who just spoke used a lot of facts and in some respects was talking about the budget. We should examine that a bit.
The issue that has been brought up here is child poverty and globalization. In terms of poverty, would the member agree that something should have been done in the last budget for the over 2.5 million Canadians who are still paying taxes to the federal government and earning less than $15,000 a year? In fact the 1997-98 fiscal year which ended on March 31 would have had a surplus of over $4.5 billion if the government had not decided to spend it.
I see the member is getting some coaching from her colleague but that is all right. Maybe together the two of them can figure out something.
It seems to me it would have been an opportune time to have some tax relief for low income Canadians, to take them off the tax rolls altogether. What is required are good paying jobs. People who are not in the category of having high paying jobs should not have the extra difficulty of having to pay federal taxes on an income that is very low, $15,000 or less.
Would the hon. member agree with me on that?