Mr. Speaker, our very honoured colleague, the previous minister of finance Jim Flaherty, was speaking of a plan that was only laid out at the time in very general terms. The plan that has come forward is not the plan he was speaking of when he talked about that.
Our plan would reach over four million families and is part of a suite of actions. It is not standing alone. In other words, the family tax cut, a federal tax credit that allows the higher income spouse to transfer up to $50,000 of taxable income, is part of the proposal. However, along with this is increasing the universal child care benefit for children under the age of six, where parents would receive a benefit of $160 a month for each child. That is up from $100 a month. It would expand the UCCB to children age six through 17. As of January 2015, under the expanded plan, parents would receive a benefit of $60 per month for children age six through 17.
It would also increase the child care expense deduction dollar limits by $1,000. The maximum amounts that could be claimed would increase to $8,000 from $7,000 for children under age seven and to $5,000 from $4,000 for children age seven through 16.
Even The New York Times has recognized that our middle class in Canada is doing extremely well.