No, I am not politicizing it.
Mr. Speaker, I am listening to these guys heckle right now, and I will respond to that heckle.
I stood up here for days, for years, asking why we were the last of the G7 countries to do this and why we had not done it yet. I worked internally in my caucus to push the minister of finance at the time, and I presented petition after petition from my community on this issue, so no, I am not going to jump onto an issue on a case-by-case basis for three minutes so that I can politicize it like the Conservatives do. That would be just like what I have to listen to in the House when they suddenly become the champions of those with low incomes in our society.
We introduced automatic federal benefits in our budget, something the Conservatives voted against. Now low-income Canadians whose tax returns are very simple can benefit from it being an automatic process so they immediately get the tax refund. They do not need an accountant or to go to a third-party company and pay for it. That is helping low-income Canadians. Conservatives are not helping when they are getting up and saying that, if we reduce the gas tax even more than we have already, it would help low-income Canadians more than the wealthy Canadians, who obviously consume way more fuel than low-income Canadians.
We expanded and entrenched the Canada child benefit. If members want one clear example of a difference in policy between the Liberals and Conservatives, they need look no further than the Canada child benefit. All they have to do is compare two very easy policies, one presented by the Conservatives under Stephen Harper and one presented by the Liberals.
The goal was ultimately the same, which was to give money to help support children. The key difference between the two is that Stephen Harper's universal child care benefit gave a cheque for every single child. If a person had three kids, they got three times the individual child amount. It did not matter whether they were making $20,000 a year or $2 million a year. Everybody got the exact same cheque.
When we came along we said that it might make more sense to not give cheques to millionaires, but instead take that money and give more to low-income Canadians, who would use the money right away and inject it right back into our economy. If Canadians want just one example of a fundamental difference in the philosophy behind the policies of the Liberals and the Conservatives, all they need to do is look at the two different child care benefits that were introduced under the two different governments. That tells them everything they need to know about the differences between the Liberals and Conservatives.
Of course, there is the $10-a-day child care benefit that we have been working with the provinces on. There is also the Canada dental plan that the member for Regina—Lewvan did not vote in favour of.