Madam Speaker, clearly this is a scheme by which the Liberals and the NDP are working together to overtax Canadians, to engage in vote buying on a massive scale, $4.5 billion, in a way that is not in keeping with parliamentary history and our constitutional traditions.
What about everyone else who has been left out of the budget in the first place? What about the municipalities, fishermen, farmers, seniors and aboriginal Canadians? Why are we not pursuing at this time cuts in taxes?
My friend from Langley has raised that question. If we were to give everyday Canadians a tax cut of $1,000 per year, they could invest that in a RRSP instead of having that money gobbled up by increased government expenditures, which is what we have seen over the last five years to six years in the country. If we gave Canadians an extra $1,000 to keep in their pockets, they could spend it on their child care choices, or on senior citizens or on helping their parents. They could spend it on a wide variety of things.
If we as Canadians received that kind of a tax cut, $1,000 per year invested at 5% over 20 years would amount to $35,000 that Canadians could save. It would be $70,000 if we looked at it over 30 years. Those are the priorities of Canadians, saving money, being conscious of the needs of one's children, choice in parental care, choice in day care, choice in taking care of one's parents and working with them through their retirement. Those are the choices that Canadians would make. Many people would save that money and create jobs. Those should be the priorities of Canadians today.
Those are the priorities of the Conservative Party and that is how we would administer the finances of the Government of Canada, not in a way that we see in Bill C-48, which is such a flagrant abuse of the nation's finances.