Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question. She is also a member of the finance committee so she knows what we heard on the road from people talking about debt and tax relief.
Many regional programs that we have seen governments direct are always mistargeted. The cost of bureaucracy is excessively high and never create the long term sustainable jobs we would like to see.
She talks about a reduction in the surtax. We think that is great. It should apply to everybody. It is great that they started off and targeted a few people, but the complexity that they have added into the system with this budget takes a tax accountant and a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out the idiosyncrasies of this system, which certainly is at cross purposes to pandering to the poorest sectors of society that are not able to afford an accountant to begin with.
In addition, that complexity flies in the face of the target they are trying to make. When they take the huge CPP increases, which certainly affect Canada's working poor, and balance them off with the nickels and dimes we see tossed their way in the budget, the end result over the three year program shows the working poor as being worse off than they are now. I do not see that as helping that sector of society.