Mr. Speaker, the Liberals like to talk a lot about protecting the middle class and those working hard to join it. This is one of their tag lines. The reality is that this summer, the government introduced some tax changes that are actually incredibly unfair and hurtful toward those who are in the middle class and working hard to join it. I have heard from thousands of people in my riding who are worried about these small business tax hikes and how they are going to hurt them and their families.
I am not talking about the people who are at the very top, the 1% the finance minister would want us to believe these individuals are. Instead, these are the local coffee shop owners and restaurant owners in my riding. These are the hairdressers and the plumbers in our communities. These are men and women who are incredibly hard working and they are providing jobs, and they are making about $75,000 per year. These are the middle-class, hard-working Canadians the current government is attacking.
Lela is an entrepreneur who owns a diner in my town. She recently wrote to me and said, “I employ 6 people. With the minimum wage increases and then this tax proposed, it's going to be next to impossible to continue. I can't add more to my prices. The carbon tax has also affected my business. How can we pay more? It's impossible to keep going.”
Lela is one of many small business owners across the country who is asking this very question.
The Liberals are determined to make sure that these hard-working visionaries are put at a disadvantage in terms of running their business. They are not only making it difficult to save for retirement, they are targeting families that work together in family-run small businesses, such as in agriculture.
In my riding, of course, I have many farmers and egg operators. Often it is the whole family that works together: the mom, the dad, the kids, sometimes the grandparents, an aunt, or an uncle. They are part of the operation, making it a success. They work as a collective to make sure that the operation runs smoothly.
They are going to have their businesses scrutinized by bureaucrats in Ottawa, according to these changes that are coming up as of January 1, 2018. Parents will no longer be able to pay their children for the work they do on the family farm without a CRA tax person first going through the record and deciding what counts as farm work.
We are talking about people thousands of miles away who will be looking through these records. These people may have never set foot on a farm before in their lives, and they will dictate to farmers in my riding, and ridings across this country, what counts and what does not in terms of their taxes.
Hard-working farm families are going to have to spend time they do not have to fill out these log books, which will be incredibly strenuous and time-consuming. They will have a ton of paperwork to do just to be able to collect a paycheque at the end of the day.
We have seen Canadians from all across this country speak out against these unfair tax changes. Small business owners are worried about their future under the Liberal government, and rightly so.
The Liberals have informed us that they are consulting Canadians and that they are listening to the feedback they receive about these tax changes and will make changes accordingly. It is clear from what I have seen over the last two years of the Liberal government that it is not truly listening to Canadians, nor does it intend to. The Liberals have made many decisions contrary to hard-working Canadians, to those who are part of the middle class and those working hard to join it. They have raised taxes on families. We have heard the member across stand up and say that they will lower the small business tax rate from 10.5% to 9% in 2019. To that I say kudos, because that was actually a Conservative platform—