Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to sincerely congratulate the member for Louis-Hébert who is now the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. We have the pleasure of being neighbours in the Quebec City area. He is a feisty politician for whom I have a great deal of respect and with whom I really enjoy crossing swords.
Perhaps he has not noticed, but I would point out to him that his two predecessors are currently cabinet ministers. I am quite certain that the member for Louis-Hébert did not notice that, so I wanted to point it out. In all sincerity, I really respect my colleague.
Now let us really get to the heart of the matter. The parliamentary secretary said a number of things that are worthy of closer scrutiny, particularly the facts. He said earlier that his government had introduced budget measures that leave more money in the pockets of families and that make the wealthy, the infamous 1%, pay more in taxes. The facts say otherwise.
First of all, the Fraser Institute published a study two weeks ago that found that 80% of families are now paying $840 more than when we were in government. Also, with respect to the Liberal government's so-called attack on wealthy Canadians, the infamous 1%, the Department of Finance found, on page 16 of a study tabled last week, that there is $1.2 billion less in the government coffers, basically because of those of us who are better off.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance agree with the Department of Finance, which found that the wealthy have ended up paying less tax under the Liberal government?