Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this opposition day motion which is a very important one.
The core of the matter is what we see in budget 2013 is the Conservatives are raising taxes even though they promised Canadians that they would not.
I have a quote here from the Prime Minister who said, “As long as I will be prime minister...there will be no new taxes.” I assume that leadership conventions are not finished yet, and that there will be one on the other side of the House sometime before 2015, if he is in fact true to his word.
The Conservatives promised that there would not be any new taxes, but of course they are increasing taxes on a whole host of things. I will be mentioning some of them. There is even a new tax, HST on parking at municipal parking lots and at hospitals. People who go to visit a loved one or who go to the hospital for some service will now be paying HST on parking services. The list goes on. There are really two reasons, and I do not know if they have been touched upon during the debate today. The first question is, “Why are the Conservatives raising taxes?”
I will be sharing my time with the member for Newton—North Delta.
Why are the Conservatives raising taxes when they are cutting everywhere else? One would think that the Conservatives would not have to raise taxes because the cuts are so deep. I will use one example here. According to FedNor's website, $23.6 million less.
Last year, the Conservatives announced they were getting rid of some initiatives, including the LIC grant program. That used to provide up to $5,000 for non-profits, including municipalities. I know that one of our communities, Atikokan in my riding, took advantage of that grant to update their website to help promote business and their community.
Those things have all disappeared. The first question is, “Why are the Conservatives raising taxes when they are already making these cuts everywhere else?”
It also says on that site that there is a drop in funding for community economic development programs which are the core funding mechanisms for FedNor initiatives. Also, 20 people are going to lose their jobs. Why are the Conservatives raising taxes when they are cutting? This is just one example of a program that is being cut.
We have heard the Conservatives talking today and saying that they are not raising taxes, they are just making things more expensive for Canadians to buy. We have all heard the rhetoric from the government the last two and a half years, about that sort of thing. They call them taxes, so I do not know why they will not be honest with Canadians and tell them that these are in fact taxes when they raise the prices.
There is one thing that has not been talked about today, and I have been listening intently. For those of us who have a number of border communities, I have three border crossings in my riding, out-shopping is a big problem, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses in the riding. If these things become more expensive, and I am going to talk about “these things” in a minute, that will simply promote crossing the border to shop. It is counterintuitive to raise these taxes, particularly on the things that I am going to talk about. I will use one example, bicycles. We import about $125 million in bicycles every year from 72 different countries. Now the tariff will increase from 7.5% to 13%. It will cost Canadian cyclists between $5 million and $6 million a year. That is what the tariff or tax on bicycles is going to cost Canadian consumers.
For the second reason, I am going to counterpoint what I have just said. As I talk about the examples in this budget, I am going to counterpoint with actual examples of really inappropriate spending by the government.
I just need to take one area, and I am going to talk about the G8 legacy fund. The G8 legacy fund was $1.2 billion all together, and a significant portion of that was used by the President of the Treasury Board, the minister for the Treasury Board, to spend some money in his riding. I will talk about some of that spending right now, and then you, Mr. Speaker, can tell me whether this was really appropriate.
Let us begin with the famous gazebo. With some sidewalk upgrades, some landscaping and the gazebo, that came in at $745,000. By the way, if people watching or MPs would like to go and see this, it is at 15 Humphrey Drive in the township of Seguin. It is there, and people can see what $745,000 bought them. The point I am making is that if one does not cut and one spends money appropriately, one does not need to raise taxes.
Let us take another one, baby carriages. Nearly 90% of all baby carriages come from these countries with tariffs, so there would be a 3% tariff hike. That is a tax, and that 3% hike would cost Canadian consumers about $1 million annually. However, the President of the Treasury Board of course thought it was okay to pay for some signage in Muskoka Lakes and some sidewalks, decorative street lights, benches, waste receptacles and flower pots to a tune of $1,060,000. I am not sure that was really G8 legacy fund money. That money could have certainly counterbalanced the money the Conservatives need to bring in now by raising taxes.
Turning to school supplies, 61% of imported plastic school supplies are from these nations that now have new tariffs on them. There was a tariff before of 3% and now it is 6.5%. So these school supplies are now going to cost Canadian consumers $1.3 million a year. That is counterbalanced of course with some street lighting upgrades and new outdoor furniture for the town of Gravenhurst during the G8 legacy fund spending. That was $1,200,000. Is that appropriate spending?
Some other costs to consumers include wigs. Let us say that for perhaps medical reasons, people may need to buy wigs. Those wigs would now cost Canadian consumers $4.6 million more.
Plastic tableware and houseware—I guess plastic spoons and forks—would have a tariff or tax on them that would cost $11 million. However, the taxes would be raised because in the township of Burk's Falls there were some sidewalks and one electronic sign and public washrooms that cost $150,000. The town of Parry Sound got new sidewalks and trees, a welcome sign and some landscaping and a fountain too, at a cost of $1,321,750.
These figures I am giving members were not easy to find. It took us a long time to find these figures, and I am passing them on to everyone in this House and everybody who is watching on television because if we spend taxpayers' money appropriately we do not need to raise taxes, as the Conservatives would in this budget.
Let me talk about the iPod tax and that on MP3 players. The Canada Border Services Agency has written to at least one importer to indicate that the iPod touch 8GB would be subject to end-user verification in order to get a tariff exemption. Sony has said it is way more trouble than it is worth. So we would see those things increase.
I will give the grand total of the spending on the G8 legacy fund. I itemized a couple of things, but the grand total is $45,758,945, money spent inappropriately. This is one of the reasons that the government has to raise taxes, to make up for the shortfall.