Mr. Speaker, my congratulations on your new duties.
I want to thank the member for his speech and welcome him to the House of Commons, and also his colleague, who spoke earlier and who, like me, is a maritimer. It is nice to have a band of maritimers here even if we ended up having to come to Ottawa for what we consider gainful employment but what others would say is a little more dubious.
The member spoke about the question of child care, which we also support and which we advanced in the last Parliament, with funding for it negotiated with the provinces. We advanced an agreement for developing an early childhood program as well as assisting lower and moderate income families through tax breaks, through tax reductions and the increase in the tax exemption, both of which the Conservatives took a completely different tack on. Their tack in fact assists higher income earners, people who can afford having only one member of the family working outside the home with the other working at home. In this situation, only the lower income is taxed. If both family members are working at $30,000 or $40,000, they are fully taxed and there is very little revenue.
The same is true with the GST and low income families. Most of the expenditures of low income families are not taxable items, but if someone is earning $100,000 plus, the GST reduction is a substantial rebate. It is fitting that the Conservatives would reduce the GST because, after all, it was their party that introduced it. Neither our party nor theirs would oppose that type of economic approach.
Perhaps the member could explain to me why his leader would have de facto supported the Conservatives in the last election, knowing exactly what their agenda was, knowing that these were the items they were promoting. The Conservatives were straightforward in saying that there would be a financial transfer to families with children under six, not considering that it still costs a lot of money for education, maintenance and care for children above six.
They were also straightforward in saying they would provide a slight reduction in the GST but that at the same time this would be paid for by an increase in tax exemptions and personal taxes for lower and moderate income families. Could he explain why his leader would de facto have supported that type of government?