Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Guelph—Wellington for her speech, but I do want to take issue with some of the assertions she made.
I heard her say a minute ago that we should be congratulating the finance minister for balancing the budget. Surely the member knows it was the Canadian taxpayers who balanced the budget. Revenue is 70% higher than when the government took power.
We have a situation now where the government has completely reversed its stand from 1993. I point out in the 1993 election campaign we had the Prime Minister, the then Leader of the Opposition, saying zero deficits, zero jobs, zero hope.
What conversion on the road to Damascus did the Prime Minister go through? All of a sudden, it sounds as though the member for Guelph—Wellington is somehow suggesting that a balanced budget was the government's idea all along. Quite the contrary. In fact, they spoke against it in the election campaign.
I want to point out, leading to my question, that the hon. member does not intentionally want to lead people to believe that somehow they are going to get a tax break under this government. I am certain that is not her intention.
I simply want to point out by way of a question that the member is mistaken if she believes Canadians are going to be getting tax relief under this government's proposals. I point out that if the CPP increases that came into effect January 1 are included, if the effective bracket creep that takes place every year is included, amounting to just over a billion dollars in tax increases that Canadians face, and this is all netted out, we find that we in Canada will pay $2 billion more in taxes in 1998-99, $2.15 billion more in 1999-2000 and $2.8 billion more in taxes in 2000-2001.
Given those facts, will the member acknowledge that Canadians will be facing higher taxes, not lower, because of this government's actions?