Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present a petition on the income trust broken promise, on behalf of Mrs. Gina Palmer of Calgary, Alberta, who remembers the Prime Minister boasting about his apparent commitment to accountability when he said “the greatest fraud is a promise not kept”.
The petitioners remind the Prime Minister that he had promised never to tax income trusts, but he recklessly broke that promise by imposing a 31.5% punitive tax, which permanently wiped out $25 billion from hard-earned retirement savings from over two million Canadians, particularly seniors.
The petitioners therefore call upon the Conservative minority government to: first, admit that the decision to tax income trusts was based on flawed methodology and incorrect assumptions; second, to apologize to those who were unfairly harmed by this broken promise; and finally, to repeal the 31.5% punitive tax.