Madam Speaker, I heard the comments of the member for Medicine Hat. The party opposite uses the expression “marginal tax rates”. What are marginal tax rates? Marginal tax rates are taxes at the margin; what an individual will be taxed for every incremental dollar. It can apply to anyone in the income tax system, but when members opposite talk about marginal tax rates they talk about marginal tax rates at the high end. While it is true that the government has not reduced marginal tax rates at the high end as much as we have reduced marginal tax rates at the middle income and low income levels, we have reduced taxes significantly.
In budget 2000 we have a tax package of $58 billion as a minimum. The economy continues to tick away at a growth rate of about 4% annually. There have been 18 consecutive quarters of growth. The way the member opposite was speaking we would think it was doom and gloom. There have been 18 straight quarters of growth in the country. We are leading the G-7 and the OECD countries. In terms of employment growth, we are leading the G-7. Unemployment is at its lowest level in a generation—in 24 years. I could go on and on about the good news. I am glad that Canadians do not listen all that carefully to the doom and gloom across the way.
I would like to address the member's premise in terms of the tax rates at the high end of the income tax scale. That really coincides with the opposition's flat tax proposal. Let me give a comparison. A taxpayer—