Madam Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for sharing her time. She is new to the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and is doing an excellent job in leading our committee. I want to thank her for her efforts.
Today, I have 10 minutes to talk about everything that is in our low tax plan, this budget that the Minister of Finance has brought forward. I want to focus on a number of things that affect Burlington in particular. If I wanted to go through all the good things for Canadians that are in this budget, it would take me about two hours instead of 10 minutes.
I am going to focus on things that are for Burlington. I hope my NDP friends listen because this is some of the stuff that they actually asked for and are now going to an election. I think they hoodwinked the Liberal Party into thinking that the NDP was going to support the budget, so they could say anything they wanted. But all of a sudden, no, they are not. Now the Liberals are caught with egg on their face, now that we are facing an election.
Let us get back to what is important to Burlington in the budget. First and foremost, the majority of the calls, emails and visits to my office are from seniors, by far the greatest number are from seniors about the issues facing seniors in my riding of Burlington.
I have advocated for a number of things for seniors over the years with the finance minister and with other departments. I am very happy to see what we are doing for the poorest seniors in this country. In the past we have looked at seniors issues, and with pension splitting we have been able to resolve some issues. It is a big benefit to the seniors of Burlington.
In this budget we are enhancing the money that is going into GIS. GIS, for those who do not know, is the guaranteed income supplement. That supplement is for those who have the lowest income levels in Canada. This change that we are making today will affect 680,000 seniors across this country, including many seniors in my riding. It is $600 annually for an individual or $840 for a couple, which will make a significant difference in the income levels for those seniors.
I did a study when I first got into office, five years ago, on what a senior's income actually is. At that time it was just over $18,000 a year for Burlington seniors. It has gone up. Our party has done things for seniors, in terms of deductions and so on. We have been able to address this.
This is a significant change that we are making, that is targeted—