Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to revisit the question I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage on October 31 of last year. That is over three months ago.
I asked the minister about a tax credit that was quietly brought forward by the Liberal government that would benefit talk shows. This tax credit was also to be backdated to February of 2016. In October, I asked the minister to tell the House how much this tax credit would cost hard-working Canadian families. In response, we did not learn how much the tax credit would cost taxpayers, nor was the tax credit even acknowledged in the minister's response. This is what brings us here tonight.
I cannot believe that yet another measure is being introduced by the Liberal government that will likely cost the taxpayer substantially while benefiting very few. Meanwhile, tax credits that benefit Canadians coast to coast are being revoked. We watched as the children's fitness tax credit and arts tax credit were revoked, and the Liberal government even cancelled income splitting for families. These tax credits and measures that would benefit the average Canadian are being repurposed to finance boutique issues and the Liberal elite.
As the media pointed out, the subsidy is sure to benefit a number of production companies in, of all places, the Prime Minister's home town of Montreal. As Canadians, we should be questioning the priorities of a government that is subsidizing talk shows while running a projected $25 billion deficit, and indeed running deficits almost every year until 2055, according to the Department of Finance.
We should be questioning why the government chose to squander a federal surplus left by the previous government and is raising taxes on Canadians families to finance niche markets like talk shows. Given that the government cannot even follow its own ethical standards, Canadians deserve to know how much of their hard-earned tax dollars are going to fill the pockets of media elites who are friendly with the Liberal government. We should be looking into whose hands this money actually falls. Is this another way to finance cash for access fundraisers concocted by the Prime Minister and his Liberal cronies?
As all of this unfolds in front of us, I worry for my children and grandchildren, who will be saddled with this enormous debt. In the meantime, Canadians will continue to be taxed, unable to decide how to spend the money that they worked hard to earn. We know that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is looking into a Netflix tax and that the government is considering a tax on health and dental benefits. These are taxes that would hurt the middle class, Canadians that the government claim to advocate for.
It is clear that the Liberals will propose tax credits when they help their friends hosting talk shows, but will cancel them when they help ordinary, hard-working Canadian families. Can the parliamentary secretary tell us today, definitively, how much this tax credit will cost taxpayers?