Madam Speaker, I have listened with interest to some of my colleagues on the opposite side who claim that their party does not raise taxes.
I want my colleague, the hon. member who just gave a terrific speech, to comment on this fallacy. We know that in 2006, the Conservatives raised taxes to 15.5% after the Liberals had lowered them to 15%. The Conservatives also taxed income trusts at 34%, which was a loss of $30 billion to many seniors who had investments in income trusts. The Conservatives put a tax on new travellers, the air travellers security tax. The Conservatives just hiked payroll taxes to $13 billion.
Well, no wonder the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that today we are in a structural deficit and that the government is not in a position to balance the books by 2015-16 as the Minister of Finance has promised.
I wonder if my hon. colleague might want to comment on some of that.