Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents. Like I did last time when I spoke on energy east, I am going to use a Yiddish proverb: the heaviest burden is an empty pocket. Lowering the tax on the middle bracket and hiking taxes on savings would empty the pockets of my constituents.
With this bill, the government would also defer taxation to another generation, because, by its own admission, it will run big deficits well into the future. Why are we punishing savers? The tax cut has the biggest impact on the highest income earners. They get full advantage, whereas others would get pennies on the dollar. Most importantly, the government's economic plan seems to involve sacrificing energy and resource jobs to satisfy and mollify opponents of major energy infrastructure projects. A Canadian without a job pays no income tax, and that is the truth for many of my constituents right now who are out of work. They cannot contribute to the national coffers, but, more importantly, they cannot do anything for their families, their loved ones, to earn income to pay for their daily expenses.
Albertans understand the value of thrift and frugality. I do not see those values on that side of the House. I see an insatiable appetite for deficit spending and debt bingeing. The Bill C-2 tax plan further offends the principle of equal pay for equal work. Let me explain.
Let us take two of my constituents, both welders. Many of my constituents happen to work in the trades. One of them works a standard 40-hour week and opts to forgo overtime to stay home with his family and take up coaching on weekends. The other welder decides to work seven days a week, three weeks on, one week off, and spends 14 or 16 hours per day working. This welder gives up time with his family, his kids do not see him, and it strains his marriage. Why does he do it? He does it because he believes it is worth the sacrifice for the reward. That is not an exception in Alberta.
Many families over the past decade have struggled with this choice between a higher income and the quality of life that it brings and family time at home. There exists no practical scheme of averaging incomes that can do justice to the author or inventor, artist or actor, or tradesman, who either sacrifice a few years with their family or reap the rewards of their craft after decades of effort in a few short years. Their extra effort is taxed more in those years. The income after tax does not purchase as many goods and services for their effort.
The purchasing power of these two welders varies significantly and the effort that each expends for the work should be fairly addressed by our income tax system. The tax scheme proposed in Bill C-2 punishes them all. Why are we punishing professionals and tradesmen who work extra hours, sacrifice their weekends with their families, and contribute more to our common prosperity? How fair is this? Bill C-2 punishes success and hard work. It says no to extra effort and to greater endurance at work.
Like other members have said, we know from the parliamentary budget office that the tax plan partially set out in Bill C-2 is not revenue neutral. The budget office confirmed what Conservatives have always been saying, and have repeatedly said today, which is that this tax plan, if we can call it a tax plan, would create an $8.9 billion budget hole by fiscal year 2020-21. The deficit spending of today is simply the deferred taxation of tomorrow. It is a tax hike of tomorrow on our children's futures.
In January 2009, the Conservative government announced a $63-billion economic stimulus. The opposition then crowed that it was not enough. It took many years of stewarding the economy and careful spending reductions to wrestle that deficit to zero. In fact, the “Fiscal Monitor” published by the Department of Finance showed that the outgoing Conservatives left the Liberals a $400 million surplus. That was in November. They are welcome.
Members on the other side of the House accused us of running deficits for the stimulus that they were demanding in 2008-09, the stimulus they threatened to bring down the government over. They wanted more spending, a bigger deficit, and more debt. Now they are about to embark on a spending spree with the taxpayers' credit card, totalling $125 billion over 10 years. This excludes, of course, all the other ill-thought-out promises they made in their platforms. It also excludes any potential emergencies, new policy initiatives, or new operating costs associated with this new public infrastructure that will be built, and on and on.
I am concerned that the government plans to run massive, long-term structural deficits, which would increase the tax burden on future Canadians and leave Canada more vulnerable to economic headwinds or economic shocks. It seems the answer from the other side of the House is that the next generation can pay.
I truly believe the worst part of this bill is the slashing of the TFSA in half. We know that 75% of tax-free savings account holders earned less than $70,000 in 2013. Nearly 700,000 seniors have a tax-free savings account.
It was the number one issue brought up to me while I was enjoying the Calgary Stampede, serving my constituents in New Brison, Cranston, and Auburn Bay. The number one issue that they brought to my attention was how much they enjoyed using the TFSA to plan for their future.
Past Liberal members of this House in 2008-09 criticized the TFSA when we introduced it for the first time as only for the 1%, but Canadians have proved them wrong. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. In fact, 11 million Canadians took advantage of the TFSA and said that the Liberals were wrong.
It is not just for retirement. It is also an excellent saving tool in general, because when done right, it allows Canadians to save tax free. The TFSA can be used to save for a post-secondary education, for a new car, to start a small business, or even for a down payment for a home. Here I think we can extend the analogy a little bit to buying a house.
An individual's investment in it is like a TFSA. An individual can pay for their house out of after-tax income, but any gains on the sale of a principal residence are tax free. If the individual cannot afford a house as an investment vehicle, the TFSA serves that role admirably. It is that intermediary goal between owning a house and something else as a savings tool.
Some Canadians use the TFSA to save for emergencies, and we in Calgary have experience with that. A BMO survey in September 2015 found that 66% of respondents had less than $10,000 available in an emergency. It is not about maximizing the use of the tax-free savings account. I understand many Canadians cannot reach the maximum, but it is about choice. It is about freedom of choice. It is about flexibility. It is about humility from the government to admit it does not have all the answers, and Canadians know best how to save for themselves.
Canadians understand their own personal needs much better than we do in this House, and some Canadians have chosen RRSPs. On average, 30% set aside money in an RRSP every single year, but 11 million Canadians have chosen a TFSA as their retirement service of choice.
Like many parents, I spend a lot time tyring to teach my kids the fundamentals of the economy so that they will understand the importance of saving their money, their income.
I will spend decades rewarding good behaviour and reminding them why it matters. We spend a lifetime teaching this to our children, but the government sends the opposite message when it slashes the TFSA. We have spent years promoting financial literacy at the federal level, and we prize financial literacy in our students, yet when it comes to creating and preserving efficient savings vehicles that facilitate savings, we slash them in half.
I wholeheartedly reject the notion that the TFSA has a public cost associated with this, as a cost to the treasury. We are taxing the savings of Canadians. It is not a cost to government. It is an unfair tax on those Canadians who want to save. It is taxing thrift and frugality. It is taxing those who plan for themselves and make choices for their own future. By slashing the TFSA in half, the government is simply moving the cost to private households, and that is wrong.
In closing, I heard someone on this side of the House say that this bill was an election promise, so the government has to go ahead with this ill-advised plan. However, one aspect of leadership is the ability to adapt to changing conditions. Conditions have definitely changed, especially in my province, Alberta. Cutting TFSA contributions is not a show of leadership. Instead, it will hurt Canadians' ability to save. Under a previous Liberal government, led by this Prime Minister's father, Canada's net debt rose from $18 billion to $206 billion, from 24% to 43% of GDP.
I encourage all members to vote against this bill. Canadian families are not here to support the government's frivolous spending.