Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure I rise to debate the motion advanced by the Conservatives. I expected there might have been a change to their plans overnight, given the comments from the Prime Minister.
It is an interesting process. The Conservatives like to give a bit of a scoop, that the Liberals will do this or the Liberals will tax that, but they have really lost the theme of what this government has been telling Canadians. Maybe I should remind them.
One of the very first things this government did was to make it clear that we are here to serve Canada's middle class and those who are striving to become a part of Canada's middle class. That was demonstrated very clearly in the very first piece of legislation we introduced, which was to implement that tax break. It is interesting to note that the Conservative Party voted against the tax break for Canada's middle class.
The Conservatives can say what they will, but whether we are talking about our health care workers, many of our factory workers, many of our first time responders, Canada's core middle class was given a tax break. That tax break put money into the pockets of Canadians, and the Conservatives voted against it.
I would suggest that we do not have to take any advice from a Conservative Party that has lost touch with what Canadians are thinking and what Canadians want. I truly believe that the Conservatives have lost touch with Canadians. At the end of the day, if we look at the overall presentation that this government has made on budgetary policy, the biggest benefactors will be Canada's middle class through that tax break. There is also the Canada child benefit plan for our children, the additional dollars that are being spent on that program. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance expanded on that quite well, I think. We are going to lift tens of thousands of children out of poverty because of that plan.
We could talk about the GIS, something which I have spoken about in the House on numerous occasions. Again, there is a substantial increase in what some of the most poor and vulnerable seniors in Canada from coast to coast to coast are receiving. For poorer seniors, there is in excess of $900 a year more going into their pockets.
That covers just a few initiatives that were presented by this government in the last year.
On the other side, the Conservatives now realize they kind of blew it on this health tax idea, and personally, I think they were the ones who were thinking of it. It had nothing to do, from the best that I can tell, with the Government of Canada looking into it, and the Prime Minister made it very clear yesterday that we are not moving ahead with any sort of tax on health and dental plans.
Having said that, they brought in a friendly amendment, which was accepted by the Conservative Party. It was an internal change that they made and accepted. Now they want to focus on small businesses. The Prime Minister just finished going to town halls across Canada. I had the good fortune to have him show up in Winnipeg to participate in one of those town halls. That is real accountability. Please correct me if I am wrong, but can the Conservatives tell me when the former prime minister, Stephen Harper, did anything of that nature?
The former prime minister was inside a glass bubble and Harper did not go outside of it. Now we have a Prime Minister who is not scared of accountability, who believes in transparency. We have seen demonstrations of that ever since the last federal election back in October 2015.
What we hear is very real, because it is coming from Canadians. It is not only the Prime Minister of Canada who has town halls. He has challenged all members, particularly members of the Liberal caucus, to stay connected with their constituents. We do that in many different ways.
I will now reference something that I have commented on in the past. The Conservatives and New Democrats talk about small businesses. If we were to ask small businesses what they want more than anything else, they would say they want customers. The best way to get them more customers and more consumer spending in their stores is to ensure that they have more disposable income. That is, in fact, what this government has delivered through its tax breaks to Canada's middle class and those striving to become part of it. Hundreds of millions of extra dollars are going into the pockets of Canadians that are allowing them to increase their disposable incomes just through that program, not to mention the other two programs I mentioned.
Combined, the billions of dollars that are now in the Canadian economy are a direct result of this government's policies to put more money in the pockets of the middle class, which allows more money to be spent in the economy. Liberals believe that, ultimately, if there is a healthy middle class, there will be a healthier economy. That is, really and truly, what Canadians want. If the Conservatives would go outside of the former Harper bubble, or possibly the Ottawa bubble, and actually consult with constituents, they would find that the important issues before us today that people are really concerned about are issues like jobs and the economy, which continue to be of the utmost importance for this Prime Minister and this government.
The Minister of Finance, now with the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, has done a phenomenal job reaching out to Canadians in many ways to ensure that the ideas being generated for discussion in cabinet, in the Liberal caucus, or within the chamber are ideas being generated by average Canadians. That is why I believe that we will be able to deliver a budget in due course that will reflect the wants and needs of Canadians.
We talk about tax fairness. There is no doubt that Canadians, as a whole, want tax fairness. I have heard members from the New Democratic Party talk about it, in particular. The last budget recognized, as I believe most of Canada's wealthiest people recognize, that they, too, have an obligation to pay for the many different programs that Canadians expect to be put in place and supported. That is why we increased the tax on Canada's wealthiest.
What I find most interesting about all of this is that even though there are substantial increases in taxes, in other cases substantial tax decreases, and, as I just referenced, an increase in tax on Canada's wealthiest, which we on this side understand and take that holistic approach, time after time, members across the way vote against these types of initiatives. If we listen to members across the way talk about tax fairness or dealing with the inequity of the distribution of wealth in Canada and then look at the actions of this government, it is somewhat confusing as to why they would not, at the very least, support some of the actions in a more tangible way.
A number of members on the Conservative side have talked about the deficit. The best way I can reassure all who might be listening is for them to realize that no one added more to the debt than former prime minister Stephen Harper, a total debt well in excess of $150 billion. We do not need to take lessons from the Conservatives. When Mr. Harper took office he actually had a multi-billion dollar surplus. He converted that awfully quickly to a deficit, and he never did get to a surplus position.