Madam Speaker, to appease my colleague across the way from Elmwood—Transcona, who maybe was not paying attention to my whole presentation, I have consistently said that the opposition, including in good part the NDP, have consistently opposed the Minister of Finance in every way, just like the motion today does. The NDP members are working with the Conservatives, even though the Ethics Commissioner has said that nothing has gone wrong. The Ethics Commissioner has not sent advice or a recommendation to the Minister of Finance, who has done exactly what the member across the way has done.
We enhanced business through a tax break for the middle class and both the Conservatives and the NDP voted against that. We know there have been many other initiatives. The opposition parties jointly voted against the Minister of Finance when it came to the tax increase on Canada's wealthiest. I would argue that it was about tax fairness, but they chose to oppose the government.
There have been a number of initiatives by the government that have been led by the Minister of Finance. Look at the Canada pension plan. The Minister of Finance worked with federal counterparts across every province and territory on a very important deal. One of my colleagues referred to how the Minister of Finance was working with other ministers. It was the finance minister from Saskatchewan who commented on the integrity of the national Minister of Finance. He said it was nice to see Minister of Finance follow through on the things he said, and there is a tremendous amount of respect for him, which ultimately resulted in an enhancement of the CPP, something that the Harper government was unable to achieve, let alone have an interest in. It ensures that Canadians will have more money in their pockets when it comes time to retire in the years ahead. What was the response by the opposition parties? They called it another tax and then went on to attack the Minister of Finance once again, even though other political parties at the provincial level did not see it as a tax. They see it as an investment for retirement for Canadians in the future, but not the Conservative Party here. They are so fixated and wanting to attack the Minister of Finance that they have focused their attention day in and day out criticizing the minister because of this so-called tax, which was not really a tax.
We can talk about the guaranteed income supplement, which I thought was long overdue. The former government ignored that file and we now have a new government with the Minister of Finance who wants to get more seniors out of poverty. That is what the increase to the GIS was all about. In good part, it was a huge success. Once again, the Conservative Party—