Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and neighbour from Vancouver Island, from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, for giving me a chance to clarify the Green Party platform, which he referred to as the 2011 platform.
We do not mind the concept of income splitting if there are adequate resources to make it possible without shrinking the services that we need in the Canadian government. However, I do not want it going on the record that we currently support income splitting. I want to give members some indication as to why it is unlikely to show up in our 2015 platform.
Members of the party at the convention changed from supporting a carbon tax that could be used to offset income splitting to moving to a carbon fee and dividend whereby every Canadian would receive the benefit of essentially translating pollution into support for lower incomes and all levels of income. That provision means that income splitting is no longer possible under our budget, because it is about a $5 billion cost. If we do not have something to offset that $5 billion cost, then it is simply not possible to do it. Therefore, we would be distributing the carbon fee and dividend throughout the economy, and we no longer support the income-splitting provision to which my hon. friend referred this afternoon.