Mr. Speaker, in April we introduced economic action plan 2015, this year's federal budget. As we promised in the 2011 election, we have balanced the budget. In fact, we have a $1.4 billion surplus. We have also kept our commitment to balance the budget without raising taxes and without cutting transfer payments to our most cherished social programs like health care. Not only have we not raised taxes, but we have cut taxes and provided even more tax incentives for individuals, families, and businesses.
In fact, this budget builds on measures introduced since we first formed government, providing a typical two-income family of four tax relief and increased benefits of up to $6,600 more than in 2006. The 2015 budget has been praised by a broad and diverse group of business experts, economists, entrepreneurs, and most importantly, ordinary Canadians.
This budget is family-friendly and sensitive to seniors' needs. It addresses students' concerns. It is pro-business, the economy's job creators, and supportive of our veterans and Canadian Armed Forces. It supports communities through significant infrastructure investments and it is designed to create jobs, spur economic growth, and ensure long-term prosperity for all Canadians while ensuring future generations.
Our Conservative government remains focused on what matters most to Canadians. Our priorities are and will remain jobs and economic growth. We are keeping taxes low and supporting families. We are investing in infrastructure and helping to create jobs, while keeping to our plan to return to a balanced budget.
This year's budget is a balanced budget. We have taken steps to control expenditures without reducing transfers to individuals or the provinces. We cannot say as much for the opposition parties. The Liberals, for example, are offering nothing of substance in terms of the economy or job creation. Their leader has no plan for balancing the budget.
In fact, what is even more disturbing is that the Liberal leader said that the budget would balance itself. Even with the tax increases he proposes, his plan leaves a $2 billion gap that can only be closed by increasing the debt and creating new taxes.
The NDP does not offer any more hope. It continues to defend risky economic schemes and unwise spending. It is proposing a total of over $56 billion in new, imprudent spending, which would increase the tax burden and plunge Canada into permanent deficit.
Providing real support to Canadian families is an important responsibility for our Conservative government. Our economic prosperity plan is a plan for lower taxes, which puts money back into the pockets of hard-working Canadians.
We are proud of our solid record of tax relief, a record that reduces the federal tax burden to its lowest level in a generation. We have implemented unprecedented tax-saving initiatives, such as cutting the GST to 5% and introducing the tax-free savings account, thereby reducing the tax burden of all Canadians.
Furthermore, the latest tax relief measures for families taken by our government will help make life more affordable for all Canadian families with children. Our Conservative government has improved and expanded the universal child care benefit. This reduces the cost of child care still further, while enabling parents to choose the type of child care that best suits their family.
We have increased the benefits to $1,920 per year for each child under the age of six and we are introducing a new benefit of $720 per year for children between the ages of six and 17. This is in addition to the $1,000 more each year that families can claim under the child care expense deduction.
In addition, we are helping more families enrol their children in sporting activities by doubling the children’s fitness tax credit and making it refundable.
Moreover, the government has established the historic family tax cut, which allows couples to transfer up to $50,000 of taxable income to the spouse who is in a lower income tax bracket.
This reduces the income tax they would have to pay by up to $2,000. The family tax cut helps make our income tax system fairer by ensuring that families with the same earning power do not pay completely different amounts of income tax.
We hear a lot about the injustice of income splitting, that it is only going to help a very small portion of the population, and that it is only going to help the rich. Nothing could be further from the truth. I grew up in a family of 14 kids. My dad was a school teacher, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and income splitting would have helped my family.
That is not just a rare exception to the rule. Every single family on my block would have benefited from this. Almost every single family in my community would have benefited from this. None of us were rich. The only few families who would not have benefited from this were the families who were not paying taxes anyway because they were in a low income tax bracket or a non-existent tax bracket, which is a sad place to be, but their taxes could not be reduced if they were not paying any taxes.
We also do not claim that this one measure would solve all the world's problems. I am going to give a bit of a metaphor as a critique of our measures. Suppose that every day 10 men go out for a root beer and the bill for all 10 comes to $100. If they paid their bill according to the way we pay taxes, it would go something like this: the first four are the poorest and they would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh would pay $7; the eighth would pay $12; the ninth would pay $18; and the tenth man, who is the richest, would pay $59. He has the easiest ability to do so, so that is what they decide to do.
The 10 men drink their root beer every day and seem quite happy with the arrangement, until one day the owner of the bar threw them a curve ball. He said that they were such good customers and that he did not want them to leave, so he was going to reduce the cost of their daily root beer by $20. Drinks for the 10 men would now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, because that is fair. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink root beer for free. What about the other six men? How could they divide the $20 windfall? If they divide the $20 by six, it is $3.33, but if they subtract $3.33 from everybody's bill, the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his root beer. That did not seem fair either.
So, the bartender suggested reducing each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer that man was, following the principle of our fair tax system. They worked it out so that the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing; the sixth would now paid $2 instead of $3, a 33% savings; the seventh would pay $5 instead of $7, a 28% savings; the eighth would pay $9 instead of $12, a 25% saving; the ninth would pay $14 instead of $18, which is a 22% saving; and the tenth now paid $49 instead of $59.
Now, each of the six who had been paying was better off than before and the first four continued to drink for free. However, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. Then along came a guy who had grown up with a silver mug. He pointed out that the sixth man only got a dollar out of the $20 saving; he then pointed to the tenth man and said that he got $10 in savings. The fifth man exclaimed that he only saved a $1 too, and that it was unfair because the tenth man got 10 times more benefit than he did. The seventh man shouted that it was true and asked why the tenth should get $10 back, when he himself had only gotten $2, and that the wealthy get all the breaks.
The man with the silver mug hollered that they should not forget that the first four guys did not get anything at all—and remember, they had been getting free root beer all along—that the new tax system exploits the poor, and that the guys should reject the $20 discount because it was nothing but a giveaway for the richest guys in the group.
They ganged up on the tenth guy and shamed him for being so selfish and for taking their money, so he quit going to the root beer get-together every night. When they went back the next day, there were only nine there. They found out when paying the amount they had to pay that they only had half the amount of money that they owed for the root beer.
The man with the silver mug said that they would have to pay back their discount, and their price would be raised by 7%. They were still $37 short, so he would cut the root beer in half and find another way.
That is the injustice we are talking about. Our budget is good, it is fair, and it helps all Canadian families.