Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his comments and question, although the question was hard to understand.
He mentioned two things in his comments that I want to address. The first is that this is the first step toward the upcoming budget. As I said in my speech earlier, we do not understand why, with just two months before the budget, the government did not just include the first step in the upcoming budget. Why the smoke and mirrors and the gifts just before Christmas when it could have simply incorporated these measures in the budget? From where we are standing, this is nothing more than a public relations and marketing scheme.
The second thing is the child tax benefit that will be included in the upcoming budget, as the government announced. It is too bad that the benefit the Conservatives enhanced was not made non-taxable. Instead, families having a hard time making ends meet will be taxed on the benefits they received during the year. We think that makes no sense. The government should have eliminated the tax on that benefit.