Mr. Speaker, we would first have to get our deficit to zero. We have to stop spending more money than we are taking in. At that point we would have the option to ask what we would do. The Reform Party has proposed to offer the average family of four in Canada $2,000 by the year 2000 in a tax reduction: $2,000 by 2000 will become a battle cry of people across Canada.
Second, we would make all sorts of changes in the area of personal exemptions so that the people at the low end of the scale, the single parent families that are presently continuing to pay tax would be taken off the tax roll. It is our projection that for those people earning $30,000 and under, we could remove 89 per cent of the taxes those people are paying.
By lowering the taxes of people at the bottom end of the scale, the people in the lowest income decile, we would have the opportunity to give them the ability to make decisions about their own lives with their own money. That money, interestingly, would end up back in the economy immediately because obviously a family of four with an income of $20,000, $30,000 or $40,000 will be spending all of its income on the essentials and the necessities of life with a few frills. The family of four with a $100,000 income will of course have choices.
The beauty of our idea is that by making sure the taxes stay in the hands of people in the low income decile or the low income area, those people will spend the money and put it back into the economy.
Once again we come back to pizzas and muffins. We end with more pizzas purchased. We end up with more muffins purchased. We end up with more barbeques purchased. We end up with more chocolate bars purchased. In that way we end up with more people working. It is a direct way for Canadians to help themselves with their own money rather than the government helping them with their own money.