Mr. Speaker, the member has covered a lot of ground. It is always interesting to hear what constituents have to say about things when they are only told part of the story.
At the end of her speech the member mentioned the fact that there will be tax credits or input tax credits to businesses because there will not be the cascading of the provincial tax that currently exists, which means that the cost of business expenses will go down, but they will not be passed on unless there is a competitive environment. That is probably true. That is a very important point.
She quoted from an email saying, “Is anyone honest anymore?” I kind of hearken back to the very first thing she said which was that the price of a haircut was going up 8%. Period. Full Stop. However, throughout her speech she did not mention that as part of the agreement between the Conservative government and the province of Ontario, there are permanent income tax cuts of 16.5%, there is a one-time $1,000 credit, and there will also be a new sales tax credit, just as Canadians receive now with the GST sales tax credit.
So there are offsets. It is pretty easy to list the number of goods and services, particularly the services, that will in fact attract a new tax to make the whole system simpler, but the offset to that is to give real, permanent income tax decreases to the residents of Ontario at the same time, and those tax cuts are proposed to be effective January 1, 2010 whereas the HST is not intended to be implemented until July 1, 2010.
My question for the member is, has she been honest with her constituents?