Mr. Speaker, on May 2, Canada's new government presented its first budget and the budget delivers. It delivers on tax relief, on focused spending, on debt paydown, on supporting infrastructure, on investing in health care and on helping Canadians most in need. I am very proud to support the budget on behalf of the residents of Barrie.
Let us look at the tax relief in the budget. Taxes are too high. Canadians are overtaxed and the budget recognizes that. Since 1994 the GST burden on Canadians has doubled from $15.9 billion to $31.8 billion. Total income taxes collected have doubled and personal income taxes are up 82%.
According to the TD Bank, GDP per worker rose by 21.8% over the past 15 years and yet real after tax income per worker remained stagnant at just a 3.6% gain over the same period.
Enough is enough. Canadians deserve a break. Canadians deserve to be unleashed from the shackles of the Liberal tax age. It is time to give money back to Canadians. That is the bottom line of budget 2006. The budget delivers $20 billion in tax relief over two years. That is more than the last four budgets combined.
Let me tell the House how the new government will lower taxes. The government will reduce the GST from 7% to 6% effective July 1; happy Canada day. We will create a new $1,000 Canada employment credit effective July 1. This new tax credit gives Canadians a break on what it costs to work, recognizing expenses for such things as home computers, uniforms and supplies.
The government will reduce the lowest personal income tax rate from 16% to 15.5% effective July 1. We will increase the amount that all Canadians can earn without paying federal income taxes.
The government will create a new apprenticeship job creation tax credit of $2,000 per apprentice. Once again, effective July 1 we will provide a 15.5% credit for the cost of transit passes.
The government will completely eliminate federal income tax on all income from scholarships, bursaries and fellowships. The government will create a new tax credit for textbooks for post-secondary education. We will provide a physical fitness credit of up to $500 for the registration fees for children's sports.
The government will double the amount of eligible pension income for seniors that they can claim. I know this is the first such increase in more than 30 years.
The bottom line is that the budget delivers $20 billion in tax relief, a staggering 29 different tax reductions.
Let us talk about crime and security. Our government is committed to ensuring that Canadians are safe in their homes, their communities and on the streets, the defining characteristic of the Canadian way of life that must be preserved.
Times are changing and our cities are changing. The safe streets and neighbourhoods we expect as Canadians are threatened by gun, gang and drug crime. I have seen that happen even in Barrie where this past weekend there was a murder investigation that began in the south end of Barrie. Crime is not simply the domain of big cities but has spread into the traditionally peaceful small towns and neighbourhoods.
With this budget, our government focuses spending to protect Canadians on their streets, in their communities, at their national border and throughout the world. We are cracking down on crime. We will provide $161 million to put more RCMP officers on the streets. We will invest $37 million for the RCMP to expand their training academy.
We will set aside additional funds for Canada's correctional facilities. We will provide $20 million for communities to use and develop programs designed to prevent youth crime. We will provide $26 million to get victims a more effective voice in the judicial process. We will provide money required to arm our border agents.
Canadians deserve to feel safe within the confines of their own communities. The budget helps our Minister of Justice to achieve that important aim.
On health care the budget is a win as well. A strong health care system is the foundation of any healthy society and yet between 1994 and 1999 the previous government cut health care by $25 billion. Wait times during the Liberal tenure went from 9.3 weeks to 17.7 weeks. Canadians deserve better.
I think of my local hospital in Barrie, the Royal Victoria Hospital, which struggles with limited resources and often does not have beds available. Doctors are working extended hours. Our community has become involved financially to support the hospital. Our CEO, Janice Skot; our board chair, Chris Gariepy; and fundraising chair, David Blenkarn, have done exceptional jobs for our community. The community, which has raised over $25 million, and the city council, which has contributed one-third to the hospital expansion and over one-third to doctor recruitment, have taken on an incredible burden. We have done this despite federal leadership. We need a federal government that shows leadership in health care.
In the 1990s the federal government was part of the problem, not part of the solution. I am proud that health care funding is increasing in this budget by 6% because this government is becoming part of the solution. Our new Canadian government will work with the provinces to create a patient wait times guarantee and we have already committed $5.5 billion to the provinces for the wait times reduction transfer.
One of the challenges we face in the health care system today, especially in Barrie, is the lack of doctors. One out of 30 Canadians does not have a doctor and in Barrie it is one out of four. Given our high growth and aging physician population, this is a dangerous stat especially in Canada when doctors are driving taxi cabs and delivering pizzas. I was excited to see this budget made mention of a Canadian agency for assessment and recognition of foreign credentials. This may seem like a small, unnoticed initiative but it will certainly go a long way in communities like mine that are struggling to find doctors and are frustrated by the ones within our own communities who are not allowed to practice in the land of hope and opportunity simply because their medical degree is from a different country. Even if they pass our equivalency exams, often we do not give them residency spots because of a lack of funding in our health care system.
We will improve the system so Canadians get what they pay for.
Small businesses are the backbone of the Canadian economy. Many Canadians are employed by them. They are responsible for almost half of all the new jobs created in Canada. All of us turn to small businesses for services, such as our local dry cleaner, our computer software company and our local grocer. I think of our small businesses in Barrie like Garner's Source for Sports on Dunlop Street, StorageOne on Bell Farm Road and Hot Banana, a new tech company. We need to support these small businesses because they are the heart of our communities. They create jobs and give back to our communities in a cultural and charitable fashion.
Canada needs a government that will do everything it can to support small businesses. We will increase the threshold for small business' income eligible for a reduced federal tax rate from $300,000 to $400,000 effective January 1. This is an important step. This government will also reduce the 12% rate to 11.5% effective 2008 and 11% in 2009. I am very pleased by this.
I remember before the election that the local branch of the CFIB and Lew Miller put together a group and talked about these issues. These are things they wanted to see Canada's new government focus on. It is really encouraging to see that the government has actually put plans in place that small businesses were thirsty for in this country.
I want to make note of initiatives in this budget for apprenticeships and tradespeople. Canada is facing a serious shortage of tradespeople, such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, cooks and others. Our government is taking action to encourage apprenticeships and support apprentices in their training. Our Prime Minister came to Barrie last fall and made a commitment to Georgian College where we have a very focused training program for apprentices. He said that if he were prime minister he would support the industry and do everything he could to support initiatives like we have at Georgian College.
I am very encouraged that in this budget we are going to help companies hire apprentices with a new apprenticeship job creation tax credit of $2,000. We will create a new apprenticeship incentive grant of $1,000 per year for the first two years of a red seal apprenticeship program. We will invest $500 million over the next two years in these two measures, which will help approximately 100,000 apprentices.
We will also help apprentices and tradespeople with the heavy burden of buying the tools they need to do their jobs. Our government will invest $155 million over the next two years for a cost of tools deduction, which will help approximately 700,000 employed tradespeople in Canada.
I also want to make mention of what this budget will do for municipalities. As a former city councillor in Barrie, I am very impressed with the commitment this government is making to infrastructure. Investing in infrastructure, bridges, roads and transit is all too important.
Delays in moving goods and the cost of a business is a very significant challenge for businesses when we do not have a proper infrastructure. Hence, supporting municipal infrastructure, supporting pan-Canadian infrastructure is a significant advantage for Canadians because we are investing in our economy or allowing for a greater speed of delivery for our goods.
This is a long term commitment of unprecedented new investment that the government is focusing on. Over the next four years we will invest a total of $16.5 billion in new infrastructure initiatives, including $3.5 billion this year and $3.9 billion next year.
The government will provide more than $5.5 billion in new federal funding for highways and border infrastructure, the municipal road infrastructure fund, the Canadian strategic infrastructure fund, the public transit capital trust, and the Pacific Gateway initiative.
This is great news for cities. Municipalities only receive 8ยข on the tax dollar to deal with the many day to day challenges of Canadian citizens. The mayor and city council in Barrie are doing a great job with a limited budget. I am certainly encouraged to see that the government is able to do a little bit to help them.
On January 23 Barrie residents voted for change. Our new Prime Minister promised to honour that trust. I suggest that the Prime Minister has delivered in the budget. It is certainly encouraging to see.