They are down from 45% he says. I am not sure about that, but it is around 42%. So, that is really the level of taxation in Canada. The average family spends almost 50% of its income on taxes.
There was a Fraser Institute study that came out the other day and it went through all the taxes. There are so many of them, and it is almost 50%. An average family in Canada earns around $60,000 which is not a huge amount of money, especially if there are a lot of children. It is pretty clear that if one is spending 50% of one's income on taxes there is not a lot left over to deal with some of the things that are important to people, whether it is having some money to pay for diapers, or to put children in hockey or ballet, or buy them music lessons, or whatever it is. These are not really luxuries, I would argue. They are important things for families.
We must have lower taxes in Canada and we are not hearing that from my friends across the aisle right now. My leader, the member for Calgary Southwest, has made the argument that we must have lower taxes, both to acknowledge the difficult struggles of families today and also because ultimately it is the road to growth.
If we have lower taxes, then there is the possibility of accumulating capital that can then be used to purchase education, the tools that are necessary to make a person more productive, expand the economy, and bring more revenues into government. And ultimately, to have a stronger social safety net to again help people on the low end who, through no fault of their own, cannot make it for some reason.
We all want that in this place, but I think the government is missing the boat when it does not address that in a fundamental way. I would also say to my friend from the Bloc that it is also the way that Bloc members should be arguing. They should be arguing that we need lower taxes in general to help people so that whatever their situation is, they will have that money.
If they are on the low end of the income scale, they would be able to deal with the problems that they face, but ultimately, and just as importantly, lower taxes in the end broaden the tax base. They make us more productive, they raise the standard of living, and they ensure that there are more revenues coming in so that we can have a sustainable social safety net. To me that is just so important.
The other day a group of us talked with a senior economist here in Canada, somebody who does this work and considers these issues all the time. We talked about the problem of the coming demographic crunch. We talked for a long time about the need to make Canada far more productive so that we will have the revenues coming in to ensure that we have a strong social safety net, so that when it comes to health care, pensions, and social programs, the money will be there.
Let me conclude by again congratulating the member for her initiatives and certainly for her motives. They are completely honourable and we all should be concerned with the fate of people who are less well off then we are. We need to find ways to help them.
We would argue that we should be approaching this in a slightly different way. She seems to be upset about that. We really do honour what she is attempting to do and we think it is a good effort, but we would approach it differently.