Mr. Speaker, Statistics Canada's annual report on family income verifies what many Canadians have known for years: family budgets do not balance. Why? StatsCan reports that family income has actually declined by 6.7 per cent since its peak in 1989. The report calls it the longest and steepest decline in the last four decades. In fact, the average family income in 1993 was slightly lower than the level recorded in 1980.
As if that is not enough, personal per capita income and take home pay has also declined. The culprits? The PST, GST and UI premiums. We are income taxed to death.
It seems easy for the government to dismiss the grassroots tax rallies springing up across Canada. In doing so it blithely dismisses the growing economic nightmare of those individuals and families that hold our future as a nation.
The finance minister must recognize that Canadian families will not sit back and watch this trend continue with the imposition of further tax increases in its forthcoming budget.