Mr. Speaker, I will surprise the hon. member for Etobicoke North by telling him that I agree with him in the area of people coming into our constituency offices.
I recall very vividly a couple of years ago very low income people coming into our offices, many of whom for whatever reason were deriving a major portion of their income, meagre as it was, from the United States. All of a sudden, unannounced, out of the clear blue sky, their income was decreased in some instances by a few dollars and in other instances by $100. When a person is in as low income bracket as many of these people were, $100 is an awful lot of money.
I also agree with him that amendments to the regulations in 1996 created a situation where the taxes relative to the income were very high and very unjust. I ask the member if this is not an indictment of the finance minister. Is this not an indictment of his government?
He stands and says that the Liberal backbenchers went to work and made something happen here. Indeed the finance and revenue departments will have letters on file not only from my office but from members from all over this House about this issue. The movement under the finance minister was a bad move.
Is the member not really saying with his speech that yes they were very high and they were very unjust and the people were being treated unfairly, but the Liberal government of the 35th Parliament that brought this in did a very bone-headed move and actually created a serious problem for many low income seniors in our country?