Mr. Speaker, I will just clarify for the member for Calgary Nose Hill that I am from Saskatchewan, not Manitoba, and I will not pretend to be intimately familiar with all the details of Manitoba provincial politics. What I will say philosophically is that I do not believe in legislation that requires governments to go through referenda before making tax changes. I believe in the sovereignty of Parliament, and I think that governments need to make important fiscal decisions all the time.
However, what I am really excited about, in terms of the NDP at the provincial level, is the most excellent government we have in Alberta. It has really moved that province out of the dark ages of having this regressive flat tax and has in fact brought Alberta into the light of having a progressive income tax, where people who have the good fortune to earn higher incomes pay a higher rate of tax on those incomes. I believe that progressive taxation is really a hallmark of civilized society, and it is a great thing that Alberta, under the NDP, has joined the rest of the country in that regard.