Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this income trust broken promise petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 and as certified by the Clerk.
It was forwarded to me by Mrs. MacIntyre of Sarnia, Ontario, who remembers the Prime Minister boasting about his apparent commitment to accountability when he said that the greatest fraud was a promise not kept.
The petitioners remind the Prime Minister that he promised never to tax income trusts but that he broke that promise and imposed a 31.5% punitive tax that permanently wiped out over $25 billion of the hard-earned retirement savings of over two million Canadians, particularly of seniors.
The petitioners, therefore, call upon the Conservative minority government, first, to admit that the decisions to tax income trusts were based on flawed methodology and incorrect assumptions; second, to apologize to those who were unfairly harmed by this broken promise; and finally, to repeal the punitive 31.5% tax on income trusts.