Mr. Speaker, I listen to this nonsense. I listened to it for years before I was elected. I used to watch this kind of nonsense from both sides of the House.
My wife and I have raised four children and they are now young adults. We have twin sons. When our two boys were in grade 10, they got part time jobs making a minimum salary. When they came home with their paycheques they were aghast at the difference between their gross pay and what they were going to be able to cash that cheque for because of people like this taking and gouging young Canadians like our children and millions like them.
They are being gouged with high payroll taxes and now we are hearing this kind of verbiage that drips with the attributes of hypocrisy.
That is what we are hearing. They are saying that they are responsible, that they have got to give control back to Canadians. Who took the control from them in the first place? Who increased the taxes year after year after year?
I was born, my mother tells me, in that old log house that I remember with a sod roof. We eventually moved out of that house. We were not unlike many of our neighbours. We moved out of that home to a better home, but we could never have done it if 50 cents of every dollar we had earned had been taken away by taxes.
We built this country on low taxes. What is destroying this country is high taxation. When there are millions of families like Kim Hicks' who are struggling to make ends meet on $30,000 a year and the government is taking anywhere from $2,500 to $3,000 away in taxes, that is criminal. That is what is wrong with this country. That is what is wrong with this government. A single mom with one child makes $15,000 and has to pay $1,300 in taxes. What does the member have to say to those people? Certainly the nonsense he has given us today and placed upon the record is no comfort to them.
When we look at the mess we are in, we look at the pilot of the Titanic . Who piloted the Titanic into the iceberg? Someone who was absolutely asleep at the wheel. That is what we have seen for the last 25 years. The pilots, whether they were Liberal pilots or Tory pilots, for the last 25 years have steered us asleep straight toward an iceberg and that iceberg is now $600 billion in size.
Forty-seven billion dollars of the taxpayers' money has to be used not on social spending, not on health care, not on education, not on seniors, not on those people who need it. No. It has to be used on the iceberg that the Titanic is headed toward.
That member stands and ridicules, mocks and scorns every attempt that the opposition members bring forward to return control back to the people. What does he do? He pretends by saying “We have screwed up this country but we are the only ones that can solve the problem. We are the ones that brought us into debt but we are the only ones who can get us out of it”.
Everyone understands the principles of economics. At the end of every month millions and millions of families have to sit down and pay their bills. They know that you cannot continue to go on and on if you are spending more than what you are bringing in.
For 25 years and beyond, that is what the Liberal and Tory governments have done to the people of this country, to my children and millions of other children. They intend to do it to our grandchildren as well, particularly with the 73% increase in the Canada pension contributions our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay.
The member should hang his head in shame and say “Yes, we made a mistake. Let us correct it. Let us work together to do something for our children and our grandchildren” and for the Kim Hicks of this country.
I do not know if the member has anything to respond that is worthwhile to these facts but I certainly give him the opportunity.