Mr. Speaker, I would like to publicly thank the member for Medicine Hat for his work as a member of the finance committee. As the chair of that committee I certainly appreciate his efforts.
On the issue of tax relief, I draw to the attention of the House that the minority report tabled by the Reform Party states: “Outside of partnership and ideological differences, the need for tax relief and tax reform is very real. The official opposition has called for major tax relief. We will outline the size of our proposed tax relief in our January report”.
I draw to the attention of the House the tax package that the House of Commons committee tabled. It is very important to understand its major components. I cite the fact that the finance committee would like the government to adopt the following plan over the next five years. First, to increase the basic and spousal amounts by 15%, which would mean that the basic personal amounts for individuals would rise to $8,200. This measure would take 500,000 Canadians off the tax rolls. It would lower the number of people on welfare and increase attachment to the workforce.
Second, we want to reduce the middle tax rate by three percentage points to 23%. This is in large part because hard-working, middle class Canadians worked so hard to defeat the deficit and give the Canadian government a surplus that they need to be rewarded.
Mr. Speaker, I will not cite the entire passage because you are signalling me to stop.
I want the hon. member for Medicine Hat to tell Canadians whether the figure in the Reform package will be over the $46 billion in tax cuts announced by the finance committee.