Mr. Speaker, to the lack of substance in the question from the hon. member for Mississauga South, based on a basic personal exemption of $12,000 as has been suggested, 2.5 million Canadians would be removed from the tax rolls. It is about $1,200 annually, which works out to about $2.5 billion.
The government's philosophy is that it can do it better than individual Canadians. We are saying that individual Canadians should be the masters of their own destiny. The money should be given back to them. Something else the government cannot get through its head is that when money is given back to Canadians it generates the economy. It generates more dollars that can then be collected by the tax creatures on that side of the House.
There are anywhere from $6 billion to $10 billion a year, but we cannot get a real handle on the numbers because the finance minister and the government will not tell us what is the real surplus. The reason they do not want to tell us the real number is that they hide it and squirrel it away so that they can spend in places where it should not be spent. Those dollars should be invested back into the pockets of Canadians.