My friend opposite, the junior finance minister, says it was. I disagree. I think that Canadians balanced it. The finance minister balanced the budget on the backs of taxpayers. He balanced it on the backs of people who are sitting in hallways in hospitals waiting for beds because he took about $20 billion out of spending for health care. He took billions out of essential programs but left lots of money for his slush fund. He left lots of money for ACOA. He left lots of money for the departments that funded the Prime Minister's hotel deal. We need to put an end to all that.
Let me talk about some specific ways in which we can benefit not only the people in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, but the people in provinces across the country.
Reformers believe that we could deliver about $26 billion in tax relief over the next three years if we hold the line on spending at $104.5 billion.
Already the government is headed for a budget this year of around $109 billion. It will probably be $4 or $4.5 billion over budget. It was $3 billion over budget last year. People probably have cause to be pretty concerned about the government falling into its old habits of spending like crazy.
If the government holds the line on spending at $104.5 billion, that frees up a lot of money. It frees up about $17 billion which could be used for debt reduction and about $26 billion which could be used for tax relief.
When that is broken down, it means about $342 million a year, or somewhere in that range, in tax relief for Newfoundland every year. As competent as my friend opposite thinks he is, I can guarantee that the people of Newfoundland would much rather have that money in their own pockets than give it to him to spend for them.
I would argue that the people of Atlantic Canada who would get a total of $1.5 billion would much rather have that money in their pockets than allow hon. members opposite to spend it for them.
We believe that the people of Ontario, who would get $10 billion in tax relief, would much rather have that money in their pockets than allow bureaucrats and politicians to spend it for them.
We argue that people in British Columbia, who could sorely use a tax break right now, would love to have billions in tax relief. It would mean a lot to them, especially as they toil under the socialist government which has done so much damage to that economy.
Our argument is very simple. We think that the money would be better used in the hands of individual taxpayers, investors and homemakers, rather than leaving it in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians who so often misuse it.
Let me touch on some of the things that we would do to help Canadians. We would eliminate the 3% and 5% surtaxes. We would fully index the tax system again so that we would stop this automatic tax increase of a billion dollars a year.
We would cut capital gains inclusion rates in half so that when people make an investment and help the economy they are not penalized heavily just because their investment may happen to keep up with inflation.
We have situations now where people invest in the economy. Their investment keeps up with inflation. All of a sudden they want to sell it, only to find that they have not made a cent in real terms but that they have to pay all kinds of tax. That is absolutely ridiculous.
We want to raise personal and spousal allowances to $7,900.
We want the child care exemption to be given to all families, no matter how they look after their children. We want to have a refundable child care credit so that people on low incomes would actually get a cheque in the mail if they were not paying any tax at all.
We want the rate on the employment insurance fund to come to an end. Instead of giving back a paltry 15% of the money that has been taken, money that was overpaid to the EI fund, we want to give it all back. We want to give back to Canadians the entire overpayment because we believe it is their money in the first place.
Those are some of the things we want to do. We want to drop the three rates down to two rates. If we add up all of those things it comes to $26 billion in tax relief. It would mean that a lot of money would go into people's pockets.
Let me give one example as I close. For the average family of four making $30,000, it would mean $4,660 in their pocket every year. That is what tax relief would do for Canadians.
My friend from Newfoundland would argue that his government could spend it better. I think that family would argue with that. It is time to embrace a new approach instead of continuing with the things that have failed for the last generation.