Mr. Speaker, on October 31 the Conservative government dropped a bombshell on Canadians by imposing a new tax regime on publicly traded income trusts. The effect on Canadian markets was devastating, resulting in the permanent loss of well over $20 billion in wealth, most of it at the expense of Canadian seniors who were relying on income trusts for day to day living expenses.
Worst of all, Canadian investors were lured into this massive fraud by a Conservative election promise made by the current Prime Minister. In the middle of the last election, the Prime Minister said on December 9, 2005, “A Conservative government will never raid seniors' nest eggs by taxing income trusts”.
Canadian investors took the Conservatives at their word and put more and more of their life savings into income trusts, making this the fastest growing sector on the market, all until the Prime Minister broke his word to Canadians.
Sadly, Canadians are learning the hard way that Conservatives are more than willing to betray election promises without any regard for the damage done to thousands of seniors who worked hard for their life savings, only to have them wiped out with the stroke of a pen.
I have a sample of one of the many letters and emails I received from my constituents in Don Valley East:
The damage done to the value of my investments in income trusts is devastating. I have incurred a 20% decline in value. It is my sincerest wish that an election will be held in the very near future and that the majority of Canadians will not re-elect your party. This is a very sad commentary and one I wish was not necessary to write. However, I have definitely lost my confidence in your party's approach to fair treatment of its citizens, particularly seniors of which I am one.
The current Prime Minister knew how much seniors were depending on income trusts and he still was determined to break his word. I know that the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance has a speech prepared and she will completely wash over the entire income trust issue and wax on about a minuscule increase in the age credit account and an announcement of income splitting for pensioners. That is an insult. Half of nothing still amounts to nothing.
I suppose seniors are supposed to be grateful to the Conservatives for what they have done, misled them. With one hand the government has swiped billions from seniors through their income trust savings and with the other has offered very little in the form of pension splitting.
In fact, some have construed this pension splitting to be income splitting. It is not. Pension splitting will do very little to curb poverty among seniors and even less to alleviate the huge losses they have suffered as a result of the Conservative income trust fraud.
Hundreds of thousands of single seniors, the majority of them women, will not see a penny from this policy.
The Liberal Party will have no part in this fraud perpetrated on Canadian taxpayers by the Conservative government.