Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Western Arctic for his thoughtful analysis of the economic update that we are dealing with today.
Clearly, with regard to the budget surpluses that keep getting sprung on us, the huge budget surpluses every year for 10 years in a row, we get surprised by them, as these phantom surpluses seem to show up out of nowhere. The government's choice to squander half of that surplus on the 1% cut to the GST is simply not benefiting the people who most need assistance in today's economy.
It shows how out of touch the Liberals and the Conservatives are, because when the people in my riding, the low income riding of Winnipeg Centre, heard that the Conservatives were going to cut the GST, the people I represent thought they were going to cut their GST cheques. When people are poor, cutting the GST means cutting their regular GST refunds. They wondered what the Conservatives were doing cutting their GST. They asked what they heck they were up to.
The Liberals and the Conservatives are just so out of touch. The fact is that the really poor low income people are not going to benefit from the 1% GST cut because they get GST rebates anyway. Those guys simply do not understand.
We know who will benefit: somebody buying a brand new car. I suppose he or she will enjoy a couple hundred bucks of benefit. Somebody buying a brand new house would, I suppose, get a $2,000 or $3,000 benefit. That is all well and good, but this is a $5 billion price tag. I ask my colleagues to think of what we could do with that $5 billion that would make a meaningful impact.