I am not sure if he has a degree.
By lowering income tax instead of the GST, he could have put the same amount of money, or more, into the pockets of Canadians. He could have done it more fairly, and in so doing, he would have given a boost to Canada's medium term prosperity. Clearly again this is a case of long term pain for all Canadians in the name of short term political expediency for the Conservative Party.
One does not need to have a Ph.D. in economics to understand that Canada will not compete with India and China on the basis of low wages. We do not even want to try. The only way we can compete is through our people, brain power, ideas, research, commercialization, entrepreneurship, higher learning, training.
The Conservatives’ measures in this area are tokens at best and, at worst, a complete shame. We Liberals had reserved $2.5 billion for research and development, particularly university research, marketing, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and new research centres. One of these centres is located in my own riding. Unfortunately, all that was cancelled in the budget. In exchange, the Conservatives are offering only $200 million, instead of $2.5 billion. This is quite pathetic.
As far as higher education is concerned, the Liberals had set aside funds to be paid to every college and university student. They could receive up to $6,000 in tuition fees for a four-year program. Once again, the Conservatives thought they should cancel this measure. What do they offer in exchange? A tax deduction for textbooks worth about $80 a year.
This is not just a token. This is an insult to hard-working students and to their parents who are hit with rising tuition fees, whereas we on this side of the House recognized this problem and offered to pay half of the fees in year one and year four up to a total of $6,000. The Conservatives are giving students an $80 tax write-off on textbooks.
Not only that but perhaps even worse, in the fiscal update we also had plans that were booked to provide even more generous assistance to disadvantaged Canadians, aboriginal people, people with disabilities and low income Canadians, who wished to go to university. In those cases the amounts were more generous.
All of that was cancelled by the Conservatives. Their pathetic $80 tax deduction for buying books is an insult compared with the substantial measures that we put in place in order to promote a learning economy that would be competitive in the world and also provide access to Canadians to post-secondary education.
While other countries work to create a tax system that fosters innovation, what does the Prime Minister do? He hikes income tax to cut the GST. While other countries pour billions into research, innovation and higher learning, what does the Prime Minister do? He withdraws from the race, offering tokens so small as to be insulting.
This is dangerous stuff. It is absolutely and totally irresponsible. It is a recipe for long term pain. Canada simply cannot afford to sit on the sidelines or to take a time out as other countries pass us by.
I come now to that second great Conservative tradition, to take from the most vulnerable Canadians and reward the better off.
With respect to tax policy, let me begin by correcting the budget numbers for the rather obvious error that every Canadian understands except, it seems, the finance minister and the Prime Minister. What we heard yesterday was an income tax increase and not an income tax cut, and that is a fact. They have offset this tax increase with a GST cut and the employment credit. On the basis of correct numbers, we find the budget takes money out of the pockets of Canadians earning around $30,000 and puts that money into the pockets of wealthier Canadians. It is absolutely false when the Prime Minister and the finance minister say that every Canadian received a tax break in this budget. That is only true if we make the wrong assumption that income taxes went down when in fact income taxes went up. That is not a very difficult assumption to correct and once we do that it becomes abundantly clear that lower income Canadians suffered a tax hike.