Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to my colleague's question. In fact, the first thought that comes to mind is that I understand better, because of this budget, why the word “progressive” was dropped from the Conservative Party's name. When we look at the tax measures proposed, we can see that in fact they are absolutely non-progressive.
As for a progressive tax rate, generally we have consumption taxes, income taxes, capital taxes and so on. What we want our tax system to be is progressive, meaning that the greater the capacity of an income tax payer to pay, the greater the opportunity for governments to share the wealth of the nation.
My colleague is quite right. The poorest among us and middle income Canadians have failed to benefit from any real tax relief whatsoever in this budget.