Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the hon. member for Saint-Jean that what we are waiting for is for the NDP to vote with us on the measures we have proposed to protect Canadians.
We clearly do not want Canadians overextended and that is why we are ensuring Canadians can make informed financial decisions. We are taking steps to improve financial literacy. We introduced credit cards reforms to ensure Canadians had the information they needed. We cut taxes and created the tax-free savings account to encourage Canadians to save for their future. We strengthened mortgage rules to protect Canadians buying homes.
We also constantly monitor the housing market, ready to take steps to ensure its ongoing stability. That is why we took prudent and sensible action to strengthen Canada's housing market earlier this year by reducing the maximum mortgage period to 30 years, significantly reducing interest payments Canadian families would have to make on their mortgages. We also lowered the maximum amount lenders could provide when refinancing mortgages to 85%. Withdrawing taxpayer backing on home equity lines of credit provided by lenders was also an advantage. Our sensible measures will help sustain the housing market and economic recovery.
Moreover, our Conservative government also recognizes that the best way to support the economic well-being of Canadians is ensuring we have a strong and growing economy through more trade and lower taxes.
While our Conservative government is focusing on creating jobs and growing the economy with its low-tax plan, the NDP is publicly calling for tax hikes, which would take a larger share of Canadians' hard-earned money.
We know that the NDP wants to impose job-killing tax hikes on Canadian employers to the tune of $10 billion during a time of global economic turbulence.
NDP members publicly attacked our Conservative government because it reduced the GST from 7% to 5%. They bemoaned the fact that Canadian families were keeping more of their own hard-earned money.
Listen to what the NDP said about this. The member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques said that cutting the GST was probably the worst measure that this government could have adopted. The NDP member for Beauport—Limoilou said that reducing the GST was a serious problem and that reducing the tax burden meant that the government would lose a significant part of its tax revenues.
The NDP plan is clear: higher taxes and irresponsible spending.
Canadians and our economy cannot afford the NDP's job-killing economic plan. The NDP's high-tax plan is yet another disturbing indication that the NDP is not fit to govern.
In conclusion, I would like to mention that the NDP has just returned from Washington, where it made proposals that will kill jobs here in Canada, where hundreds of thousands of people are employed in the oil sands. That is deplorable. I urge my colleague opposite to support our plans to keep taxes very low in order to allow Canadian families to pay their expenses.