Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the member's speech.
Usually I rise on points of order when members do not get the name of our party right, but I will simply say that member from the CCF has really misrepresented our position. When he talks about our party not being concerned about those who are less wealthy, he is misrepresenting what we actually believe.
We believe that it is best for people to have a job. We have a tax policy that would reduce taxes according to our actual numbers. If he were to be intellectually honest enough and actually look at them, instead of just spewing about them, he would see that the greatest tax reductions in our plan are for exactly the people he is talking about. In other words, when some of the rich people get a tax reduction, those who are in the lower brackets get a 100% tax reduction. That is not good enough for him. I do not know what he is asking for.
With respect to the tax for the rich, we believe that those who are well off should not be punished for their successes. Those are exactly the people we need to drive our industries, to produce jobs, to hire people and to take poor people, give them employment and get them off the welfare rolls.
Our view is that the measure of the effectiveness of our economy is not how many people we have on welfare but rather how many people we get off welfare. That is what our position is and frankly I do not care whether the member from the CCF has a response to that or not.