I notice that the members across way do not seem to like to hear the truth. They are a little concerned by it. As usual, when they do not have content, they make up for it with a lot of noise. I guess we are becoming used to that in the House.
It is actually a great treat to be on this side of the House and realize that we are going to be able to implement what we bring forward. We know that the Liberal government had its opportunity. We hear many of the Liberals still making a lot of noise and wanting to continually be after us, but they had their chance. Now Canadians are apparently more than willing to give us the opportunity to come forward with our legislation and our plan.
We are going to increase the basic personal exemption amount. That is something that low income Canadians really appreciate as well.
There are a few other things that I think are really great. During the campaign, one of the things we talked about was apprenticeship programs and what we wanted to do to try to encourage young Canadians to become part of that. I think this is a really good initiative, as I thought it was during the campaign, and we are moving ahead with it. It has a couple of components.
One is a new tax credit of up to $2,000 for employers who want to hire apprentices. I think that is a great initiative. We are going to set a $1,000 grant in place for first year and second year apprenticeships. Young people who want to get into apprenticeship programs will have the opportunity to access some of these grants.
We are putting in a $500 deduction for tradespeople for costs in excess of $1,000 for the tools they need to acquire as a condition of employment. If I were a young person, this would be exciting for me. I think young people are excited about the fact that they will be able to go into an apprenticeship program and acquire tools and get a tax deduction for doing that. I think this is long overdue as well.
To wrap up, there are many other good things in the budget that help out families, farmers and people who want to get a job. The universal commitment to parents who have children under six is another big issue and a good initiative that we think is necessary. We look forward to moving forward with the budget and enjoying the support of Canadians as we do.