Mr. Speaker, if anyone is sitting at home wondering what we are doing, this is a continuation from my speech on Friday.
The basis of my speech was built around an Athenian philosopher named Demosthenes. He is famous for a quote that says, “The easiest thing in the world is self-deceit; for every man believes what he wishes, though the reality is often different.” This is very much the world the Liberals are living in, a world of self-deceit.
Earlier we heard the finance minister, when discussing bringing closure or time allocation to the budget bill, talk about all the wonderful things the Liberals were doing for seniors, including the GIS.
I have a report from the Library of Parliament that shows, under the Liberal government, all three measures: the low income measure after tax; the low income cutoffs after tax, 1992 base; the market measure, 2011 base. Under every measure, seniors are worse off now than they were in the past.
The government talks about the middle class. The Parliamentary Budget Officer put out a report recently that showed the middle class income growth was stagnating. The government is living in a world of self-deceit.