Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to Bill C-2, introduced by our Minister of National Revenue and defended by our Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.
Today, we have heard speeches from the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent and the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques. What do these four people have in common? They come from three different political parties, but they are all proud Quebeckers who are all here to stand up for Canadian interests.
In my opinion, Bill C-2 advances Canada's interests because it helps the middle class.
During the election campaign, I know that people across this House, in their ridings, did a lot of door to door. I personally wore out many pairs of sneakers in this election campaign. The thing I saw the most was that there are people who need help. There are the poorest of people. There is the single mother who is earning $25,000 a year who needs help. She will be helped by the family benefits, the new child tax allowance that will come to her that will give her a lot more tax-free money. There are the vulnerable seniors who are living on their own. They will benefit, as well, from the guaranteed income supplement going up by 10% for single seniors.
However, there is also that great group of people, and certainly a large number of them in my riding, who are earning between $45,000 and $200,000 a year. They will greatly benefit from the middle-class tax cut and the reduction of the second tier tax rates from 22% to 20.5%.
I heard and I listened very closely to the different members of the NDP talking about those who earn less, and I do understand the goal of trying to help everyone. In the future, perhaps there will be another bill that will lower tax rates on the lowest tier. However, for the moment, we have to acknowledge that what is before us will help a lot of people.
There are people in my riding, and in many of our ridings, who are not comfortably middle class anymore. There are a lot of well-paying jobs that 25 years ago we would have said were well-paying jobs, but the salaries have not increased more than the cost of living, or less, over that long period of time. There may be families of four living on $90,000 or $100,000 on a single income, or $120,000 on two incomes, and they are also struggling to make ends meet. They are struggling to pay for their kids scholastic activities, whether through extracurricular activities such as sports, or alternatively through putting their kids in private schools. They are also struggling sometimes to support aged parents. Members of our sandwich generation have both their aged parents and their kids and are trying to take care of everybody.
It cannot be disputed that this middle-class tax cut for such a high percentage of Canadians, the entire mass of people who earn between $45,000 and $200,000, will help a lot of people. It will help a lot of families. It will help a lot of families take a vacation or do something that they otherwise would not be able to do, such as afford a mortgage on a better house.
When I look at the benefits of this law, while I fully understand the argument that there would be a possibility to do more some day, it still merits support.
I also want to point out that I agree with the reduction of the TFSA contributions from $10,000 to $5,500. I support the TFSA. I think the TFSA is an excellent vehicle for people to save. I do not dispute that it was a very good measure to put the TFSA into place. However, given the number of people who are using it and contributing more than $5,500, which is a negligible percentage, and the cost to the Treasury, I would rather reallocate that money to the child tax benefits.
I would rather see more people who are earning less have more to bring our children out of poverty. Let me just point out that for families earning less than $30,000 with one child under the age of five, that will be over $5,000 more, tax-free, which will benefit that family and perhaps bring a child out of poverty.
Any family earning less than $150,000 is getting more on the child tax credit portion, so for me, I think that is laudable.
I know that many of us have a lot of seniors in our ridings. My riding has a significant number of seniors, not just people who are 65 years old. I know my colleagues agree that 65 is not old nowadays. We are talking about people who are 80, 85, 90, or older. My grandparents and my parents' oldest friends did not move to retirement homes at 65, 75, or 80. They want to stay in their own homes.
The budget that we passed this year will enable more people to stay in their homes.
There is a problem in my riding. Two of our seniors' homes are going to close.
They are one block apart from each other. We need to put more money into social housing, particularly social housing for seniors.
Many members share these problems where they also have in their ridings seniors' homes that are closing, not enough new space for social housing, and people on a list that lasts forever when they are trying to find a way to stay in their communities. Some of the measures that we have taken this year are favourable to that.
I understand and appreciate the arguments on both sides. I am not here to attack anybody's economic record or anybody's economic plans. I only asked the question to the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques to point out that it was not something that the NDP promised in the campaign, that they wanted the lower bracket to be cut. However, I still understand and I respect that argument in the same way I respect the Conservatives' argument that the TFSA should stay at $10,000, but in the end result, what we would ask all the members to look at is the fact that I do think, on balance, Bill C-2 is a good law and we should all support it.
If I may digress for just one second, I just want to say that today after question period I was very proud of the fact that members of this place came back to reality. We had a few days that were really unpleasant here where the tension could be cut with a knife. I came to federal politics, as some members did, from municipal politics, which was not partisan, and we never had things like that happen.
At committees we work with each other really well, at least we do at the justice and human rights committee where people from all parties work together in respect. I would love to see that continue to happen in this place. Everyone here is committed to it and what I learned most from yesterday's incident was that I have a personal obligation, and we all have a personal obligation, to remind our colleagues that we want to work together in respect.
I think this afternoon, where people had to come up with speeches at the last minute, impromptu, was a perfect example of respect. I just want to again thank everyone for the way they have acted this afternoon and I hope it continues.
