Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in the House for the first time. I want to thank the thousands of voters in St. Albert—Edmonton for placing their trust and confidence in me.
There has been much deserved criticism about what was not said in the government's Speech from the Throne and what this says about the government's priorities. However, one thing that was mentioned in the Speech from the Throne was a job-killing payroll tax hike. I guess it did not take long for the new sunny ways of the government to be replaced by same old Liberal tax-and-spend ways. Former prime minister Paul Martin once characterized payroll taxes as a cancer on the economy.
More than 35,000 Canadians are out of work in just the past month, so I was wondering if the hon. member for Davenport could explain to those more than 35,000 Canadians how a job-killing payroll tax hike will get them back to work any time soon.