Mr. Speaker, Canadians across the country are feeling the pain of the minority government's about-face on income trusts. The Minister of Finance's apology does little for investors who saw their life savings vanish before their eyes.
Our offices have been bombarded with emails and phone calls from pensioners who saw their life savings decrease by nearly 20% on the stock market. For example, Mr. and Mrs. Barker from Miramichi wrote to me, saying, “The Conservatives lied” and “in this instance their lie has cost millions of Canadians dearly...Canadians have lost billions never to be regained...”.
For example, nearly 20,000 Atlantic Canadians who had participated in Aliant shares, most of them pensioners from Atlantic Canadian telephone companies, are extremely upset. Many people invested last summer on the basis of the Conservative promise not to tax income trusts.
It is sad that when it comes to trust, Canadians have little trust in the government.