Madam Speaker, first, the government did not reduce income taxes in aggregate. It robbed Peter to pay Paul. It increased the upper marginal rate from some 29% to 33%, four percentage points, in order to pay for its middle bracket tax plan. Therefore, it did not reduce the overall income tax burden. In fact, income taxes are too high in Canada. Two-thirds of the federal budget's revenues come from income taxes, approximately $200 billion a year: about $170 billion a year from personal income tax and about $30 billion or $40 billion a year from corporate income tax. It did not reduce the overall income tax burden on the Canadian economy, and it blew the opportunity to do that. Hiking income taxes on one bracket of income earners to pay for income tax cuts on another bracket of income earners is not my idea of significant income tax cuts.
Furthermore, with respect to what our plan would do, it will be forthcoming in the election, but I will say that whatever problems there were with the previous government's approach, the sector by sector regulatory approach put decades of certainty into the process. Rather than them layering on, in addition to regulation this price, which ends in 2022, it creates that uncertainty for Canadian consumers and businesses.