Mr. Speaker, a member in the House has said that she did not hear it, so I will repeat. He said, on April 14, “We will have to raise taxes”. He also said, on December 18, “I'm not going to take a GST hike off the table”.
He said that he supported a carbon tax. In fact, he was the father of the idea and led his party to adopt it in the last election campaign. He has written about it and he has supported it. As late as a couple of months ago, he indicated, once again, that he favoured taxing home heating fuel, the transportation of essential goods and services and a brand new tax that would apply to our factories and warehouses and all the industries, industries that are suffering right now under a global recession.
On this side of the House, we have Canada's economic action plan. It creates jobs building bridges, roads, communities centres and other construction projects. It helps contractors, painters and builders with a home renovation tax credit, which has caused a real boom in that sector. It cuts taxes for the average family by about $500. It allows for a new tax-free savings account, which encourages families to invest in their future and allows them to keep all the capital gains and the interest accumulated for themselves tax-free.
That is our economic action plan.
The hon. member has a leader who says, “We will have to raise taxes”. Apparently, that is the Liberal economic action plan, higher taxes in a time of recession or recovery. I do not think that makes the leader of the Liberal Party a bad person. He has every right to take that position, and I appreciate his honesty. He just has to explain which taxes he will raise, by how much and who will have to pay.