Mr. Speaker, the comments of a grade 5 student serve us well at times in this place. I think we need to step back sometimes from the economic debate and talk about, in very real and straightforward terms, how this impacts on Canadians in their everyday lives. They want to have a quality of life. They do want to have more take home money at the end of the work week. Clearly this young student is hearing around the dinner table and the breakfast table that his parents are suffering and are not getting a return on their hard work.
The government had an opportunity in this budget, as it has had in every budget, to bring taxes down and allow Canadians to keep more of their dollars, but that did not happen. We have seen the government time and again leave the taxes as they are, or in fact increase taxes as it did in this budget. It has put a surtax on travel. That is, in many ways, another job punishing tax. Because of the geographic size and the challenges of this country in terms of its massive land mass, people need to travel. Now, on top of income tax, on top of GST and on top of taxes in every walk of life, they must pay another surtax. We are already paying taxes at airports in the form of airport improvement taxes. As a result of this budget, there is another $2.4 billion tax grab by the government. Who will it affect? It will affect working Canadians, Canadians who have to travel as a result of their work or to be with their families during the holidays. It could not come at a worse time.
The young student in British Columbia shares the concerns at a very early age that many in this place will continue to work to resolve. However this young man will inherit a huge debt if we do not find a way to not only bring down taxes but to bring down the massive deficit that will continue to be there unless we are more prudent about how money is spent.