Mr. Speaker, I do believe the hon. member understands how refundable tax credits work and understands that we can have, through the tax system, a tax credit that would go to individuals who do not pay taxes.
Therefore, rather than ignoring low income families, the system we are talking about, which has been done before, tends to target the low and middle income families. What we are talking about is focusing on low and middle income families, which is not difficult to do. We can do that through the tax system. Even where families do not pay tax up to the amount of the credit, then that money will go to that family.
We are talking about targeting. We are talking about balance. The member is talking about these numbers, $500 per individual and that kind of thing. We are talking about targeted tax reduction. We are talking about amounts a lot larger than the member seems to understand. It can be done very comfortably while still ensuring that we do not go into a deficit position.
We should not forget that our party is the party that came to Ottawa as the Reform Party in 1993. It has since merged with the Progressive Conservative Party. When we came here in 1993, what was our main platform? It was balancing the budget. We had a plan to do it in three years. We called it the zero in three plan. We are the party that has always said that we would have no more deficits, that we will never get into a deficit position again.
In the 1993 election the Liberal Party said that a deficit was not important. However when it got into power it saw that it was quite a different situation. The Liberals were forced, because of our agenda, to balance the budget. The hon. member should have, over the last 11 years, learned a little bit more about what is really possible in this country.