Madam Speaker, the bill also proposes a significant increase to people earning over $200,000 a year, and that is part of the way it is paid for.
All tax cuts benefit some people to the disadvantage of others. That is the way taxes are built. We are trying to shift the tax system back into a fairer structure. People whose income passes through the bracket of $45,000 to $91,000 benefit. All of us who are in that situation benefit.
The hope is that, through that, we invest back into the economy by spending, that we generate economic activity, and in doing so we start to lift up the economy, providing jobs and opportunities for others.
As I said, if this was the only measure we took and the only focus we provided in the next four years, the member's criticism would be legitimate. However, this is the first initiative of a basket of initiatives to try to make the tax system fairer and, in making it fairer, to deliver confidence to the Canadian people both that the middle class is being rebuilt and that our other pressing needs, those of lower-income Canadians, are now in a position to be addressed specifically.
Some of us benefit, of course. It is an easy criticism to make. However, at the end of the day, when the totality of all the measures is put in place, what we are going to see is equity returned to the tax system. That is what the bill seeks to do, although as a first step, it does expose itself to that criticism.