Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present what I believe is the 100th petition presented in the House in the last two Parliaments on the subject matter of the income trust broken promise. It comes to me from Mr. Robert Cherry in my riding of Mississauga South. Of course, this petition is being presented pursuant to Standing Order 36 and it is certified by the clerk of petitions.
Mr. Cherry and the other petitioners remember the Prime Minister's commitment to accountability when the Prime Minister said, “The greatest fraud is a promise not kept”. The petitioners want to remind the Prime Minister that he promised never to tax income trusts, that he recklessly broke that promise, and that he imposed a 31.5% punitive tax which permanently wiped out $25 billion of the hard-earned retirement savings of over two million Canadians, particularly seniors.
The petitioners call upon the Conservative minority government to admit that the decision to tax income trusts was based on flawed methodology and incorrect assumptions, as was demonstrated in the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, to apologize to those who were unfairly harmed by this broken promise, and to repeal the 31.5% tax on income trusts.
Members will recall that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance indicated that this was not a problem because the markets have recovered. I wonder what they would say today.