Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my learned colleague's dissertation. One thing he mentioned was the GST cut. He described how it is a foolish reduction in taxes. I have long said that it is both dumb and mean. It does nothing to improve the productivity of the nation, whereas we could have invested that money in post-secondary education and in making sure that children from lower income families, disabled Canadians or aboriginal Canadians had a chance at education.
Instead, the government took $5.5 billion, or whatever the number was, and did it so that supposedly it benefits all Canadians. One of the fallacies that we often heard from the government was that it was a tax cut that would help all Canadians, including those with the lowest incomes who do not pay income tax.
However, there are all kinds of ways to help low income Canadians. The child tax benefit is an example. Even providing child care spaces that they otherwise would not get is a way to help. There is a whole host of ways to invest that money so that we could better help Canadians who actually need the help.
Saving a penny and a half or two cents on a double-double just does not make a big difference. I ask my colleague about the unfairness of that 1% cut, which took approximately $5.5 billion out of the economy that could have been used to better help Canadians who could use the help. Would he agree with me on that?