Mr. Speaker, it is a tremendous honour to speak today to this budget, which is a tremendous budget for Canadians. I have been on the record several times in this House complimenting the Minister of Finance for the incredible job he did making the very difficult choices that, I believe, do put Canada on the road toward becoming a stronger, safer, better Canada.
The opposition parties are working very hard to cloud the issues around the budget. They do not really want to talk about the positive effects of the budget because they are trying to come up with a reason as to why they would not vote in favour of it. Quite frankly, there are not very many reasons that one could legitimately stand in this House and say that they would not want to vote in favour of the budget. Instead, they come up with things that perhaps are not in the budget.
However, we know that budgets are about choices. We know that there is a finite amount of resources with which the government has to work and we know there is an infinite demand for those resources.
Often one of the things that we do not talk about is how these resources come into the government. We do not spend a lot of time talking about how tax dollars are raised, the tax dollars that then provide the services to Canadians and provide the capacity for the federal government to provide the services. It is important that we keep both of those in mind and that is exactly what this budget does.
In continuing with the trend established in budget 2006, the finance minister and this government were very clear. We said that Canadians pay too much tax and we have continued to reduce the tax burden. With over $20 billion in tax reductions last year, 655,000 low income Canadians were completely removed from the tax rolls in budget 2006. In this budget year, we further increased that number to 885,000 low income Canadians. The people who many MPs in this House claim to stand for have been completely removed from the federal tax roll, and that is notwithstanding the GST reduction that was a tax break for all Canadians.
The finance minister has said time and time again that he believes Canadians pay too much tax and he has delivered on tax reductions for all Canadians.
However, that is not all. We have also made significant commitments to health care. Canadians are constantly asking us to please support the health care system. They say that it is something they believe in and that it is what sets us apart as Canadians.
The budget has done that. Record funding for health care has been set aside in this year's budget and it is set to increase exponentially each and every year. However, we went a step further. We also brought in money for the new wait times guarantee of $650 million. We have also provided $400 million for the establishment of the new Canada Health Infoway. This will help us to improve the efficiency of the health care system because now we will have the capacity to put everybody's health care records on an electronic system. This means that when people visit a hospital and their health care cards are swiped, all their health care information will be readily available. This is a great thing for Canadians. I know a lot of the members in this House, who will be voting against this budget, are very much in favour of that.
Just a few moments ago the hon. member for Cambridge said that members should not vote against the budget because there may be a few things they do not see in it. I know members from the NDP support this expenditure on health care. I cannot believe that they will stand and vote against these things that are so incredibly important.
There is also incredible support for the municipalities in this budget. Last year we set in stone the full exemption of the GST for municipalities. That meant over $700,000 just in my area, in Peterborough county. That is a lot of money for Peterborough county. The support for municipalities continues because we have extended the gas tax, which grows exponentially each and every year, up to 2014.
The extension in the gas tax rebate to my municipality meant some $26 million just for Peterborough. My goodness, that is a fortune for Peterborough. The municipality will be able to do a lot of good things with that money.
Canada has a robust economy and is enjoying great success. Often when the finance minister speaks--