Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I want to extend him my best wishes for 2005. We have known each other since 1993 and he does excellent work. His only fault is that he is a Liberal, but no one is perfect. He is an outstanding colleague. We also went on interesting missions together in foreign countries. There are nice stories to tell about that.
My colleague is right. It is difficult to change personal income taxation. We tried to have different proposals. Since 1993, I cannot say that the Standing Committee on Finance has examined the issue very seriously, because somehow there is no political will to do so. He is right. When we reduce tax rates on the first income bracket, this also affects other brackets. Thus, not only low income earners, but also very high income earners, can benefit.
There must be a way. Perhaps he showed us the way earlier when he talked about a differential tax rate for some income levels. This is done elsewhere. We could look at some European countries. I often refer to Scandinavian countries. They are ahead of us with respect to personal income taxation.
They created low income categories, and the tax rate varies according to those categories. They do not use universal tax brackets, where the first slice of income is taxed at one rate and the second slice at a higher rate. The change on the first slice of income ends up in the pockets of taxpayers, even those who earn $150,000.
The hon. member for Miramichi feels strongly about this issue, as do we in the Bloc Québécois. In committee, he came up with a proposal that we took into consideration. The problem is that, if there is a lower tax rate for people with an income below $10,000, then we need to provide these people with a tax credit to give them back the income tax they have paid. For instance, a taxpayer with an income of $9,999.99 would get a tax credit of $372 to compensate for the income tax he or she has paid, whereas a taxpayer earning $10,000 will have to pay Ottawa $372, which is an incredible difference just for an extra penny in income. So, we need to look into that matter.
We started to sort out the problems in 1996, but we must take it a step further. And to do so, there must be political will. As my hon. colleague who sat on the Standing Committee on Finance knows, we have been trying for years now to put this issue on the agenda. Maybe we should think about it now that we have huge surpluses. It would help low income families.