Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I can do justice to this issue in such a brief period of time.
There was one simple adjustment that the Minister of Finance could have announced that would have given relief to thousands of Canadians. The time of the year that is the most costly for ordinary Canadian families is when they have to pay to heat their homes with the high fuel prices. Many of those same families pay EI and CPP contributions from January 1 for about eight months. Then they have a holiday at the time they have made the maximum contributions.
Would it not be sensible to shift the period of time that the government collects EI and CPP contributions to coincide so that the most expensive months for heating and fuel costs would be the tax free months in terms of payroll contributions? The government could begin collecting those contributions on April 1 instead of January 1. In the most expensive months of the year people would not be making any of those contributions to EI and CPP.
Would the member agree with that?