Madam Speaker, in fact, the numbers indicate that the bill does a lot for the 20% of Canadians with the highest incomes. It does nothing for 80% of Canadians, who will get little to nothing out of the tax cuts that were promised.
Compare the Liberals' proposal to ours, which seeks to change the first tax bracket in order to help far more people. The median income is around $31,000. People earning that amount have nothing to gain from the tax cut the Liberals promised, but would receive $200 through our proposal. An individual whose income is between $11,000 and $45,000 has nothing to gain from the Liberals' proposal, while they would receive $170 on average from ours.
The parliamentary secretary said that people earning $200,000 will start to pay more. However, under the Liberals' proposal, a person earning $210,000 a year will get a net total of $279. Under our proposal, they would pay an additional $66 in tax.
That is why I think the government is using smoke and mirrors when it talks about the middle class, since the tax cut they are promising does not help the middle class. It does nothing for 80% of the population. It redistributes supplementary income from the top 1% to 20% of the wealthiest Canadians. We do not think this measure helps the middle class.