Mr. Speaker, the day after the budget, my office received a call from a constituent from the riding of Brandon—Souris. He was very puzzled why the budget said his income tax rate would go down when in fact it would go up. He had called his constituency and was told that he had been duped by the media, and in fact the tax rate would go down. He said to my office that he had been duped into voting Conservative in the last election, but as a consequence of this lie, he had been un-duped and would subsequently no longer be voting Conservative.
Real Canadians do not care whether tax rates are legislated or done by ways and means or orders in council. This is Ottawa talk. What people care about is the taxes they actually pay. As sure as day is day and night is night, if we look at our tax form, if we read the budget, it is abundantly a fact that Canadians will pay a 15% tax rate at the lowest rate in 2005 and 15.5% next year. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
Will the parliamentary secretary, at least in the interest of transparency, honesty and accountability, acknowledge this basic fact?