Mr. Speaker, the member has the second most beautiful riding in Canada with mine obviously being the first.
I will start with the child poverty rate in Canada over the last nine or so years under the previous Conservative government. According to the latest Statistics Canada data available, the rate went down from 16.3% to 14.7%. The previous Conservative government was lowering taxes, controlling public spending, making sure the debt was not increased too much, and ensuring that it built toward a surplus.
The goal of a budget is to aim toward a surplus. We cannot start nickel-and-diming Canadians, which the Liberal government has done, with its so-called middle-class tax cut, which, as I have shown in my intervention, would not affect the middle class very much. The government will be nickel-and-diming Canadians through its carbon tax and now by taxing their dental and health benefits. What is really pernicious about this is that just a few years down the line all this debt will have to be paid back. Billions of dollars in interest will have to be paid, so taxes will have to go up to pay for that and obviously the quality of life and the quality of living will go down. At that point the government will start cutting into programs, and that is when Canadians will realize that the assumptions that the Liberal government has accepted will not only deceive the government side but will deceive all Canadians.