Mr. Speaker, I am keenly aware of the comments and thank my hon. colleague for the opportunity to offer some clarifications on what I have just said.
I know very well that what he has just said is a fact. However, what I said is that if there are two incomes in a family, both the man and the woman working, and the family is made up of two adults and two children, and if the two together earn less than $60,000, the 17% tax rate applies up to the $29,590 level.
If the income is $59,180, the portion falling between $29,000 and that $59,180 will be taxed at 26%. This is where the injustice lies. In the first example I gave, a two income family, the overall tax rate for the two incomes, which together are under $60,000, will be 17%. If this is one single income, the part between $29,500 and $59,180 will be taxed at 26%. This is the first injustice.
There is a second, that I mentioned earlier. Since there has been no indexation since 1984, not just of deductions and tax credits, but also of income levels, the 17% tax rate applies only to $29,590. If there had been indexation, the amount between $29,590 and $36,918 would not be taxed at 26% but still at 17%. In other words, a person earning $36,900 for example would be taxed at 17%, whereas at the present time he or she will be taxed at 26% on the amount between $25,591 and $36,900. This is where the injustice lies.
This situation does not affect just a few Canadian taxpayers. Most Canadian taxpayers earn $35,000 or less. According to Statistics Canada, 70% of taxpayers earn $35,000 or less. With just this adjustment to the indexation level, middle income families would benefit from tax measures. It would be only fair to them to provide full indexing, as well as correcting the injustice surrounding the difference between one family income of under $60,000 and two family incomes totalling under $60,000.
These two aspects of the tax system must be corrected. The hon. member should support this, being a member of the finance committee. With all his talk of fiscal justice, he ought to support such a measure.