Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the member.
As the member knows, as a result of the tax changes in the last two or even three budgets a typical one earner family with two children and an income of $30,000 or less now pays no net federal tax. He also knows that families with incomes of $45,000 or less will have their taxes reduced as a result of changes in recent budgets by a minimum of 10% and, in some cases, by considerably more.
Also, in the 1998 budget 400,000 lower income Canadians were completely taken off the tax rolls. In the most recent budget, another 200,000 were taken off. Therefore 600,000 Canadians are off the tax rolls altogether.
First, did the member vote for those changes and support help for lower income families in that case?
Second, with respect to the child tax benefit, which I know the member opposed, does he support the policy implemented by the Government of Ontario, with which his party is trying to develop some sort of united alternative, to deduct from single income families, the families he is apparently speaking in favour of, and families on social assistance, an amount equal to the amount of the child tax credit the federal government has provided in previous budgets and has added to in this budget?
Does the member support the fact that these poor families which were expecting an increase through the child tax benefit had that increase taken away from them by the Government of Ontario, a government that his party is in bed with?