What I'm hearing from my constituents is they feel like there's almost a war on work, when you consider how much a person loses out of a dollar that they earn. Right now, the average Canadian spends more on tax than on food, clothing and shelter combined. Let the record show that my Liberal colleagues snicker at these facts. Average people back home don't snicker at it.
When they earn the dollar, they pay, let's say, 40¢ in income tax and payroll tax. So they have 60¢ left. Then on every purchase they make with that remaining 60¢, they pay 13% or 14% in sales tax, depending on the jurisdiction in which they find themselves. Then they're paying gas tax and carbon tax and HST on both those taxes. If they're all taxed out and they need to have a drink, they're now paying higher taxes on beer, wine and spirits, a tax that rises automatically every single year. They know the government is supplying a future tax increase in the form of large, unnecessary deficits, which we know if they continue will metastasize into yet further tax increases.
Do you believe there is a disincentive to work and get ahead when the tax burden is as high as it is in Canada today?