Mr. Speaker, one can call it what one wishes, but the point is that those tax credits did not achieve the goals they set out to achieve. Those boutique tax credits, as we call them, supported only high-income families or high middle-income families who had the money to put their children into sports, or to put their children into arts and music, and at the end of the year, they got the money back in tax credits.
We are talking about families who cannot afford to do that now, so they cannot afford to wait a year. Many families do not pay that much in taxes to be able to get back that money.
What we are trying to do is level the playing field by bringing in the child benefit. The additional money that families in the low-income and middle-income brackets are going to get will allow them to do those things for their children, enrol their children in sports, buy their children sports equipment and musical equipment now, today, and not wait for the end of the year, or never being able to afford it because they do not qualify for a tax credit.
The important thing to remember is that the money we are giving is going to benefit nine out of 10 families in this country, low-income and middle-income families, and it will be tax-free. I would like to point out that the tax credits before were not tax-free. The child benefit was a taxable benefit. This is money that will be in people's hands now so they can participate today.