People up north, my colleague rightly points out, will face even greater costs because of the enormous price of heating their homes in -40°C or -45°C weather and the enormous cost of transporting oneself across enormous distances. All of these activities will become exponentially more expensive.
The government says, “Do not worry; it is all revenue neutral.” That is another one of these fancy political terms that politicians like to use that cause most eyes to glaze over, including in the case of many of the people who use the terms themselves. I asked the finance minister, “Does revenue neutral mean free?” He could not answer the question.
I am not sure if he has answered a single question in his two years in Parliament, but he could not answer when on more than a dozen occasions I asked him what this carbon tax would cost. He can not and he will not say.
How can we even know that it is revenue neutral if the government will not tell us what the original cost is? How can we know if the average family is getting back what it puts in, in taxes, if we do not know what it is in the first place? The finance minister was in committee the other day, and he said that he would tell us in September, after he is given permission to impose it.
That would be like someone going to a used car dealer and having the dealer say he will sell the car and put it on a credit card, but the person can only find out the price for the car after the purchase is made—and by the way, there is no money back if the person does not like what he paid. In other words, if we make the deal now and agree to make the payment today, seven or eight months down the road the government will tell us what came out of our bank account.
That is not how business is done in a civilized G8 democracy. Here in Canada, government has the responsibility to tell people what it will cost before people are required to pay. That is why we are going to continue to fight against this carbon tax cover-up.
The carbon tax is only one area where the government is raising the cost of living. Eighty percent of middle-class Canadians are paying higher income tax today than when the Prime Minister took office. That number will rise to 92% of middle-class Canadians, and their average cost within the next three years will be over $2,000 in new payroll taxes, new income taxes, and other taxes. That is according to the prestigious Fraser Institute, which has conducted this calculation.
Canadians are paying more of all sorts of taxes. They are also paying more for their debt. Their debt levels are being hit with higher interest rates. As I pointed out earlier, major banks are raising the cost of interest on Canadians, and that is partly due to the increased bond yields on government debt. The more the government borrows, the more it makes it expensive for Canadians to borrow, driving up the cost of living.
Let me conclude by saying that on this side of the House, we will always put people before government. We will fight for lower taxes and more affordable consumer prices for all Canadians.