I will continue with the quote while the NDP members are heckling:
[The NDP leader] is showing his socialist thought process here. It is your money when government says it is your money.... He and other progressives see all money as belonging to the collective and governments will tell you what you can keep.
I can see why they are upset about that, because they hate to face the truth, which is why they removed high-priority wording from their constitution at their convention this weekend. Indeed, if anyone wants hard proof of the NDP's high-tax agenda, look at its election platform. What do we find? We find a $21 billion carbon tax that would increase the cost of gas, groceries, electricity and everything else. What else do we find? We find a $34 billion tax hike on Canadian job creators that would kill jobs for Canadians. There is more where that came from.
Like all socialists, it kills the NDP to think that Canadians and Canadian businesses are keeping more of their hard-earned money in their own pockets and are not helping to pad the coffers of a bloated, big government. Indeed, if anyone wants more proof of the NDP high-tax agenda and what it would mean for our pockets, let us just look at the NDP record in Parliament.
Unlike the NDP, our Conservative government believes that leaving more money in the pockets of hard-working Canadians is the right thing to do, and we have the record to prove it.
Despite the NDP member's motion today, it is a fact that all Canadians are benefiting from tax relief introduced by our Conservative government. Unlike the NDP, we understand that higher taxes do not help Canadians. Since coming to office in 2006, we have cut over 150 taxes, reducing taxes in every way the government collects them: personal, consumption, business, excise taxes and more.
All Canadians, including those who do not earn enough to pay personal income tax, are benefiting from the 2% reduction in the GST rate. All taxpayers are benefiting from personal income tax relief, which includes reducing the lowest personal income tax rate to 16% and increasing the basic amount that all Canadians can earn without paying federal income tax. The new tax-free savings account is improving incentives to save through a flexible, registered general-purpose account that allows Canadians to earn tax-free investment income. We have removed over $1 million low-income Canadians completely from the tax rolls, and we have reduced the overall tax burden to its lowest level in nearly 50 years.
I am happy to report that due to our aggressive tax reductions, tax freedom day is over two weeks earlier under our government than it was under the tax-and-spend Liberals. Indeed, Canadians know that when it comes to tax reductions, our Conservative government has a long-standing record of significant achievements.
In addition, our government introduced many other targeted tax cuts, and I would like to point out that the NDP voted against every single one of these measures.
We helped families with children by introducing the child tax credit, the children's fitness tax credit and the children's arts tax credit.
We established the registered disability savings plan to help individuals and families save for the long-term financial security of those with severe disabilities.
We enhanced support to caregivers by creating the family caregiver tax credit. We provided additional annual tax cuts to seniors and pensioners by increasing the age credit and the pension income credit amounts, raising the age limit for maturing savings in registered pension plans and registered retirement savings plans, and introducing pension income splitting.
We provided further support to students and their families by exempting scholarship income from taxation, introducing the textbook tax credit and making registered education savings plans more responsive to changing needs.
We introduced the public transit tax credit to encourage public transit use. What is more, we have increased and enhanced benefits for Canadian families and individuals by introducing the universal child care benefit, introducing and enhancing the working income tax benefit and increasing the amount of income that families can earn in relation to the national child benefit supplement and the Canada child tax benefit. I could go on.
Seniors and pensioners have benefited considerably from tax cuts. Our government's excellent record when it comes to tax relief means that they pay less tax.
More specifically, since 2006, our Conservative government has increased the age tax credit for seniors by $2,000. We have doubled the maximum amount of eligible pension income that can be claimed under the pension income credit. It is now $2,000. We have introduced pension income splitting and increased the age limit for maturing pensions and registered retirement savings plans to 71 from 69 years of age.
Thanks to those measures, seniors and pensioners benefit from tax cuts worth about $2.7 billion every year. Since 2012, about 380,000 seniors no longer have to pay taxes. Once again, the NDP opposed all of these measures to cut taxes for seniors.
Our government has provided Canadians with nearly $160 billion in tax breaks overall.
That is $160 billion that Canadian families have been able to keep for themselves.
What exactly does that mean for Canadian families? Among other things, it means that they can keep more of their earnings to pay their bills, pay down their mortgage, save for their children's studies and save for their retirement.
Indeed, the average family of four can now save $3,200 in taxes because of the tax relief measures and tax cuts introduced by our Conservative government since 2006. Let us think about that for a moment. Canadian families can keep an extra $3,200 to put towards their personal priorities, but the NDP does not think that Canadians deserve to hold on to their earnings and benefit from these tax cuts.
That is a fact, and public records can prove it.
The NDP and NDP members of Parliament have a proven record of pushing a high-tax agenda by voting no again and again in the House of Commons against our Conservative government's initiatives to lower the tax burden. They protest and mock our efforts to leave more money with everyday families and businesses to help them grow our economy and much more. Public statements by NDP members of Parliament clearly underline their fundamental belief that Canadian families should be forced to send more and more of their hard-earned money to government.
Here are just a few examples of the NDP members bashing tax cuts and demanding tax increases, from many debates here in Parliament. The NDP member for Hamilton Mountain said:
The Prime Minister is picking up the [tax-fighter] mantle.
The 1% cut in the GST...will cost us collectively $5 billion in foregone community investments.
The Conservatives are intent on taking us in the wrong direction....
Listen to the NDP MP for London—Fanshawe. She said:
...I am absolutely astonished. I am breathless. A reduction in the GST...in terms of what the government can collect.... It is absolutely ludicrous.
The NDP MP for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek said:
The government's decision to go beyond the GST cut and to proceed with further personal and corporate tax cuts is troubling. This will cause a significant shrinkage in the government's fiscal capacity to invest in the aspirations of ordinary Canadians. It betrays their hopes in many ways.
The NDP MP for Thunder Bay—Rainy River said, “I believe broad-based tax cuts do not work...”.
The NDP MP for Timmins—James Bay said the Conservative government is “coming with one tax break after another, which were absolutely useless tax breaks in terms of GST”. He said “that speaks very much of the typical attitude of the neo-conservatives...”.
The NDP MP for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing stated:
The cuts are unjustified and a major cause of the current fiscal crisis. Those reckless tax cuts should be rescinded....
New Democrats have been vocal critics of reckless tax cuts....
Finally, the NDP MP for Skeena—Bulkley Valley said, “...tax cutting is seen to be a failed strategy...”.
I could literally go on for hours and hours, quoting NDP MPs who have publicly stated that they and their party are proudly opposed to lower taxes, proudly opposed to allowing Canadians to keep more of their money in their own pockets, proudly fighting for higher and higher taxes.
I want to challenge the New Democrats today to do something that I know they probably will not. As the quotes I just read demonstrate, the NDP members voted against and campaigned against our decision to cut the GST from 7% to 5%, a tax cut that is leaving $1,000 a year in the pockets of a typical Canadian family, and providing more than $12 billion in annual tax relief overall. What Canadians watching at home need to know is that the New Democrats have never admitted that cutting the GST actually left more money in the pockets of Canadians, a move that many economists have heralded for helping Canada's economy.
As Carl Sonnen of Infometrica previously noted, the two-point cut in the GST translated roughly into about 162,000 new jobs. He said, “You can't argue that raising the GST rate won't hurt jobs. It will.” He said the Conservative GST cut likely softened the recession's blow.
In fact, I want to read a couple of key quotes for Canadians who might be worried, with good reason, about the NDP's plan for the GST. These are recent quotes from key NDP MPs publicly attacking our Conservative government's reduction of the GST from 7% to 5%, bemoaning the fact Canadian families were keeping more of their hard-earned money and not the government.
Let us start with the NDP deputy finance critic, the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques who refused to answer the question, when I put it to him, about their plan to increase the GST, contrary to all the evidence we have heard here today. Here is his quote:
Cutting the GST was probably the worst measure that this government could have adopted.
Now let us listen to the NDP representative on the finance committee, the member for Beauport—Limoilou:
...reducing the GST...was a serious problem.
By reducing taxes, the government lost out on a huge amount of tax income.
Finally, let me quote the NDP finance critic, the NDP's official spokesperson on all issues related to the economy, as appointed by the NDP leader. First, the member for Parkdale—High Park had this to say. “I do not support the GST cut.... The GST cut is not a solution”.
Second, let us listen to this revealing quote:
...cuts to the GST.... ...take us in the wrong direction. I am very proud that our [NDP] caucus stood opposed to that....
Clearly, based on these quotes, Canadians should be worried about the NDP's plan for the GST and its plan to target the pockets of Canadians. As I said before, I want to challenge the NDP today, during this debate, in front of all Canadians watching at home on CPAC—