Mr. Speaker, I would like to preface my question by reading the headline in the editorial that appeared in the Globe and Mail the day after the budget, “How to complicate the nation's tax system”. The editorial stated:
So it's a pity the Conservatives have further burdened the tax form with the new math of political necessity. This week's federal budget is a hodgepodge of new credits, something for everyone but the family dog.
There is a great discrepancy, a great disconnect between what is in the budget, the approach that the budget takes, and the rhetoric of the hon. member and his colleagues on the other side of the House.
The hon. member and his colleague speak of freedom of choice. In fact, if we want to guarantee the greatest freedom of choice for Canadian taxpayers, we would cut their income taxes and they could decide if they wanted to save the money. They could decide if they wanted to spend the money. They could decide if they wanted to buy books for their children or for themselves. They could decide if they wanted to register their children for soccer or piano lessons.
Does the hon. member not agree that what the government has done, by creating 28 or 29 different tax reductions, infinitesimally small in many cases, is adopted what some commentators have called a social engineering approach to budget making?