My hon. friend says “Hardly”. Let me explain. The answer is no. He is absolutely right. After all the hoopla died away it became clear that new spending initiatives combined with tax increases from previous budgets like those in Bill C-25 would wipe out the vast majority of the $58.4 billion tax cut.
Over the next five years spending on programs will increase by $7.5 billion. This brings the supposed tax cut down to just over $50 billion, but there is more. It is kind of like buying one of those vegamatics on TV: “But wait, there is more”.
Subtract from this $50 billion the whopping $29.5 billion payroll tax hike caused by the multi-year increase to Canada pension plan premiums. As I mentioned earlier, every January for the next four years Canadians will have to pay more of their hard earned dollars to bankroll a public pension plan that for all intents and purposes is broken.
Now the tax cut is down to about $20 billion, but wait, there is more. Some $13.5 billion of this amount are nothing more than a cancellation of scheduled tax hikes. Is cancelling a scheduled tax hike a tax break? I do not think so, and judging from the response from my constituents they do not think so either.
That leaves a grand total of $7.9 billion for tax relief or, to put it another way, $107.60 per taxpayer per year. We could put it another way, $8.97 per taxpayer per month, or we could take it down even lower to $2.07 per week, enough to buy a medium size Tim Horton's coffee.
Canadian taxpayers are getting no meaningful tax relief from the Liberal government. Each Canadian is still paying over $2,000 more in taxes than they were in 1993 when the Liberals formed the government. That is quite a different story from what we have heard from the Liberals. They keep telling Canadians that there are tax cuts. It is absolute smoke and mirrors.