Mr. Speaker, indeed it was a simple answer which belies the fact that perhaps he did not understand the question.
I will ask the question again and I am looking for a very specific answer. There have been proposals floated by the NDP government and their advisers in British Columbia that they could turn around and start to take a percentage applied to the wealth that people have in their possession.
We recognize that in Canada there are many people who are barely making ends meet. There are many people who have minimum income salaries. We recognize that, but on the other hand there are people who are in what we would call the middle income bracket which would be in the range of $35,000 to $60,000 a year. Over the lifetime of those people by virtue of property appreciation particularly in centres like Toronto and Vancouver, they have seen their wealth accumulate by virtue of capital gains on their principal residence.
It is not unusual for people who are currently making $50,000 or $60,000 a year to have RRSPs in the values of $300,000 to $400,000. They are the backbone of our community in terms of being the people who are working for their wages but who have accumulated a certain amount of wealth. We are talking about wealth.
I ask the member the question again very specifically. Would he see an NDP government going ahead and applying a percentage tax on the wealth of Canadians in the same way that the NDP provincial government has done in the province of B.C. on the capital in the possession of various companies?