Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the Bloc member's private member's bill, Bill C-211, on tax reductions for forestry workers.
First, I want to say that I fully support the issue that all workers in the country are crying out for tax deductions. There is absolutely no question with respect to that. I want to talk a bit about that.
Bill C-211 is specifically targeted at forestry workers who want another tax deduction. I want to focus on the larger picture which is the taxation levels in the country.
Today we watched the Prime Minister. Ironically, he announced a $12.3 billion surplus. To his credit, he did put it on the debt. However, I have some concerns. Only months ago that he was forecasting a $3 billion surplus. I question who is doing the accounting for the government. We have a 400% increase in the amount of the surplus and one has to question exactly how this happened. Is it happening because there will be election weeks or months away? We know we are within a six month election cycle and all of a sudden we have a $12 billion surplus. We saw this type of what I call bean counting in British Columbia where months before an election there was great surpluses and months after the election there were great deficits.