Madam Speaker, my colleague always speaks passionately to these matters. I know he has the concerns of low income people greatly at heart.
I too have received a lot of calls from people who do not qualify through the present criteria. I hope there might be some expansion in this legislation but if not, it does seem to me to be a way to deliver some relief to a large number of people very quickly and efficiently.
I know my colleague studies these matters. I have an idea of the cost of this, and we heard it in the debate today, but I wonder if he has an idea in his mind of the amounts of money involved in the following.
It is my understanding that people like truckers and farmers who use gasoline and diesel already receive the GST rebate, so they are helped already by our system, the system we have here in Canada not overseas. Also, it seems to me that all low income people receive GST rebate cheques on a regular basis and they will continue to receive those.
I also know we have transferred from the gas tax, which we are discussing here, large amounts of money directly to the municipalities all across the country, particularly for transit but also for other purposes. I wonder if my colleague has any sense of the amounts of money being transferred from the GST in these particular areas.