Well, I am here, Mr. Speaker, and I hope that is okay.
Suffice to say that members across the way are profoundly embarrassed by their record of taxation and they should be. Do members know why? It is because people on the Liberal side of the House spend hours, days, weeks professing how much they care. They care so much. They care about the poor, the downtrodden and the middle class. My goodness, if words of concern were dollar bills, we would be millionaires. We hear it every day from that side of the House. We saw it in the throne speech. Oh, they care so much, but when it comes down to action, my God, they tax the hide off people. We see it every day. We get these kinds of letters every day.
Because of bracket creep, on January 1, 85,000 low income Canadians, who have never paid taxes in their life, will be dragged onto the tax rolls for the first time. They will start paying taxes. Six billion dollars a year is what this government takes from Canadians who have incomes of less than $20,000 a year. That is shameful. It is shocking.
The Liberals should be embarrassed, especially when they get up and rant and rave about social justice and concern for the little guy. No one should believe it. Those are empty words that we hear over and over again from the people on the other side.
There is a better way of approaching this. The very first thing that needs to be done is for them to quit pretending they care about cutting taxes. They should admit that they have no intention of cutting taxes in a substantial way and that they will continue to spend because Liberals are tax and spend. It seems to be something genetic.
What we ultimately want to see in Canada is a government that is committed to cutting taxes, paying down debt and holding the line on spending. We are already spending more than we have ever spent before. We believe that is the real way to help people.
I will say a few words about how to help some of the people who my friends across the way say they care so much about. How do we help people who do not have skills and who really are people who suffered over the last many years? The most obvious way is to create so many jobs that we have three jobs chasing every person instead of the other way around.
It is time to get this economy roaring so that we regain the heritage that is ours, although unrealized over the last generation. It is the heritage of an economy that is prospering so much that Canadians can go out, sometimes get jobs without many skills and be trained on the job.
My friend from Provencher can heckle all he wants. He can heckle and make fun of people on the low end of the income scale, but that is wrong.
What we are looking for is an economy that booms to the point where if people do not have skills or perhaps have not finished school, they can get a job and learn those skills on the job.
One of the most amazing examples of how that can happen is what has happened in the boom in the United States in the last little while. The United States has an unemployment rate of around 4.1%. Our rate is about 75% higher and 75% higher than our historical average. We used to have an unemployment rate that was lower than the United States.
What is happening now in the United States is that many people, the ones who were often the last to benefit when something was going well in the economy, are benefiting in a tremendous way. The bottom 20% of the black community in the United States, in terms of income, has traditionally been a group that was left out whenever there was any kind of increase in prosperity. There is no question that they were a downtrodden group. Since the economy in the U.S. has taken off, because it has been unfettered to a big degree by the regulations and taxes that we still bear, the bottom 20% of that group has an unemployment rate of 6.9%, the same unemployment rate that we have in Canada. These are the poorest of the poor in the United States. These people, who often have little skills, are now getting jobs, experience, contacts and are regaining pride. In many cases, they have had to rely on welfare in the past, but that is no longer the case. They now have real hope.
Why are we denying that to people in Canada? There are many places in this country where unemployment is through the roof. Everyone is in the same boat in places like Newfoundland, Cape Breton, parts of Quebec, the northern regions, the inner cities and in parts of every province. We see it all over the place in Canada. Why are we denying those opportunities to people who need it most in Canada? We can do it here as well. We do not have to be second cousins when it comes to economic prosperity. We used to be the economic betters of the United States. We have it within us to do that again.
Why do we accept this malaise that we see coming from the Liberal government, this mediocre approach to everything? Why not cut taxes? Why not get the economy booming again and put people back to work in droves? Why not do that? Mike Harris does it in Ontario. They do it in Alberta. Why will the Liberal government not do it?
We have an obligation as legislators in the country to do what is right for Canadians. We are failing in that job. The Liberal government has let people down. I members across the way will not do it for themselves then they should do it for their children and grandchildren. We have a moral obligation to leave the country better than we found it.