Garnett Genuis

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to answer a fairly easy question. Yes, unions have had and continue to have an important function. I know many individuals who have received valuable training support as well as advocacy through unions. Many of the basic things that we rely on today in terms of workplace safety and protection from harassment were advocated for and protected by unions long before they were protected in legislation.

It is not a reasonable or appropriate tactic to try and cast every discussion about the certification process in terms of whether or not one is pro or anti-union. I cannot speak for others necessarily, but personally I very much appreciate the value of unions but I also appreciate the importance of a fair process for determining certification. It strengthens unions when there is a credible and fair process that allows those who choose to join to do so or not using a secret ballot.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure for me to join this important debate on Bill C-7.

I appreciate hearing the thoughtful comments from all members in this House, especially the contribution of members like the member for Yellowhead who just spoke, who have significant experience themselves, or, in other cases, experience through their families with the RCMP. We are all very grateful for their service and for the context that members coming from different walks of life bring to this place.

For people elsewhere who may have just started watching this debate, I want to start my remarks by reviewing some of the basic groundwork in terms of what this bill does.

This legislation seeks to implement a Supreme Court decision that opened the door for the RCMP to form a union. We, in the official opposition, respect the decision of the Supreme Court and recognize that RCMP members are entitled to pursue membership in a union.

We think there are many aspects of Bill C-7 that are positive. In general, it is a reasonable response to the court ruling.

However, on this side of the House, we have consistently taken a very clear position on the importance of a secret ballot. I will talk more about why a secret ballot is important in this specific context and in general. However, that is the principal stumbling block on this legislation for those of us in the official opposition.

We think there are a lot of good things about this legislation, but it is not acceptable to us that a mechanism would be created for joining a union, for electing officials, for anything of that nature, that does not involve a proper democratic process.

Also, by way of context, it is important that the public knows that wage disputes will still be resolved through binding arbitration. This does not open the door to police officers being on strike or anything like that. That is an important element of context as we approach this legislation and the discussion around it.

As we are talking about the RCMP, I want to acknowledge the important work that RCMP officers do across this country, especially in my riding of Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. We do not have municipal police forces in my constituency. We are fully served by the women and men in the RCMP, and the great work that they do.

The RCMP is an icon. It is one of those recognizable Canadian icons around the world. At the local level, I have personally seen the great work that the RCMP does with the community. That is not just front-end policing, but also engaging in a constructive way with members of the community and with community organizations on issues like education, crime prevention, and those kinds of things.

I am very grateful for the contribution of the RCMP in my constituency and across the country, as well as here on Parliament Hill. We are supported in our work and our functions here by the security that members of the RCMP provide.

I talked earlier about the importance of the secret ballot for us. It is surprising that the government does not get it. I have said before that I would have thought that the debate on the secret ballot was concluded in the 19th century. To coin a phrase, it is 2016. It is strange that there still is no recognition by the government and by other parties of the importance of the secret ballot.

I will say that it is not only this bill but the process that brings this bill forward that marks a double attack against democracy. We not only have an attack on the principle of the secret ballot, but we also have the government not respecting the prerogative of members who wish to speak to the bill by moving forward with their overly aggressive approach to time allocation.

I do think there are appropriate uses of time allocation, of course. These are cases where maybe opposition parties are engaging in deleterious tactics. The government does, in certain contexts, have to move legislation forward. However, in a fairly short time, we have seen the government ramping up the scales on the use of time allocation or closure. This bill is no exception, in spite of the goodwill from the opposition and the effort to work constructively on allocation of time around these things.

We have had this on the euthanasia and assisted suicide bill, and on the budget bill. With regard to this legislation, which is under the gun of time allocation, what the government is doing here is perhaps not as egregious as we have seen in some other cases. I have mentioned. Bill C-14 as one of the most difficult and challenging issues that Parliament has dealt with in a very long time. However, there is still a failure to recognize the importance of the secret ballot and the prerogative of members wanting to speak to and have a fulsome debate on legislation like this. It is a concerning pattern that we see of the government not respecting the principles that should be very important to a well-functioning democratic polity.

That puts this in some important context. On the substantive side, as we talk about the issue of the secret ballot, I want to start by talking about responses to some of the different kinds of arguments we have heard today in this debate, and some of the specific issues around the secret ballot in the context of the RCMP. After that, I will talk about some of the underlying foundational and motivating arguments about the secret ballot and why secret ballots are important. Again, I do not think these are arguments that should have to be made, but clearly they need to be made.

In the context of this specific bill and the RCMP, I want to talk specifically about secret ballots in the context of government certification. We can look at the workplace in some sense as a sort of negotiation, maybe a competition, between workers and their employers. There are certain tools that workers have, and there are certain tools that employers have. It is worth acknowledging that in that sort of imagined competition, public sector workers have an additional advantage. They can bring public pressure to bear on the government to try to bring about concessions in the process of collective bargaining or other forms of negotiation over wages. This is a strategic advantage in that competition or relationship that does not exist in the private sector.

A group of private sector employees cannot organize to vote out their employer, but that is something that public sector employees can do. Therefore, there are additional tools that are available to the public sector. That needs to be recognized and acknowledged as we talk about these dynamics. That helps us to understand the history of why there are higher levels of unionization in the public sector, and also why every certification vote in the public sector has happened via secret ballot, which has led to these higher rates of unionization. There is this strategic advantage.

To the extent that members may raise concerns about employer intimidation preventing certification, it would have to be acknowledged that it is much less plausible in the context of the public sector, again because of these strategic dynamics. Taking that into consideration, it is difficult to justify not allowing a secret ballot in this specific context. The worries that might exist around this in other sectors could be plausibly applied in the case of the public sector.

One of the other strands we have heard in this debate is members saying that a secret ballot could still happen, that, after all, the legislation does not effectively prohibit the use of a secret ballot but simply leaves that determination to a subsequent discussion and evaluation. That is true. There is nothing in this legislation that prohibits the use of a secret ballot. It is possible that a secret ballot could be used or not, but I do not think it is good enough. If one believes that a secret ballot is important, and I think members would acknowledge in many cases how critical a secret ballot is, I do not think it is sufficient to say that there might be a secret ballot.

If I told my constituents that in the next election some ridings in Canada will have secret ballots if we determine they need them and other ridings will not have secret ballots if we determine they do not need them, I do not think my constituents would be particularly satisfied with that. They would say that if a secret ballot is the most fair, honest, reasonable, and democratic way of conducting an election, then why should that not be available to everyone? Why should it not be a guarantee instead of just a possibility? I do not think the argument that there might be a secret ballot holds much water.

We have had some discussion in this debate about the extent to which the RCMP is like the rest of the public service and the extent to which the RCMP is different. It was interesting. I listened to the speech of my friend from Oakville North—Burlington. In the context of questions and comments, she effectively gave very different answers to that question, first in response to my question, and then in response to a question from the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. She said on the one hand that we need to have the same process as other public sector individuals, and then she said the RCMP is different. Which is it? This would be our take on that.

Certainly there are important differences between the RCMP and other organizations within the public service. That is why it was important to have some of the variations, some of the exclusions, which were put in this legislation. I think at least our party and the government acknowledged the importance of those exclusions, and our members worked very hard at the committee to refine and deepen those exclusions.

However, the secret ballot is important for everyone. We would advocate a secret ballot in all cases, as we have done on a variety of different measures. The principle of a secret ballot for choosing representatives, for choosing which bargaining unit, or if an individual would like to associate with a particular bargaining unit, is so important that it should not be left to chance. It should not be maybe sometimes and maybe not elsewhere. That is why we have advocated for this consistently across the board.

As well, it is particularly important to have a secret ballot in the case of the RCMP. These are, after all, the women and men on the front lines who are defending us, protecting the physical security of our democracy. We call on the RCMP to ensure the safety and stability of the democratic process and of our lives within this country. For us to then deny the RCMP the same rights that others have in other contexts when they elect people, to deny them the right to the secret ballot in this case, would seem particularly perverse, to me at least. At the same time that they are protecting our fundamental democratic rights, that we would deny those rights to them as members of the RCMP—notwithstanding that we think the secret ballot should be available to all—in that particular situation is quite perverse.

The discussion has also been around the alternative to the secret ballot and how that would look in practice in the RCMP. Some members favour a card-check system. For those who do not know, a card-check system basically involves some members who are seeking a certification asking other members of a potential bargaining unit who want to certify to then sign and check on a card that they would like to sign up. If a certain threshold is achieved in terms of these sign-ups, then there is no subsequent process of deliberation or election; the certification simply then occurs after that card-check system has been evaluated. It occurs automatically.

There are a lot of obvious problems with that. This is a form of public ballot. It does not respect the privacy of the individuals who are being asked to sign. However, a card-check system, as has been pointed out, is particularly inappropriate in the context of the RCMP. We have a very hierarchical structure in which people have to rely on each other all the time.

Members of the RCMP may wish to discuss their political conviction in the context of that environment. They may feel comfortable doing so, and they may feel that their ability to work with their colleagues is not compromised by that. However, that should be their choice. The effect of having a card-check system for certification in this context would be that members might be forced to declare their union convictions through other members. This could have a negative effect, in certain cases, on the collegiality that is so important for the functioning of our national police force.

Therefore, why not simply ensure that members have the privacy they deserve? Why not ensure we have a guarantee of a secret ballot?

My friend from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke said something interesting. He said that the proposal for a secret ballot does not need to apply in this case because we are not talking about a public vote. He said that in a sense individuals could choose whether or not they want to join the organization and therefore there is no need for a secret ballot, if I understood what he was saying correctly.

Of course, it just needs to be said that we are talking about what would be a closed shop union. If the RCMP chose to certify, all members of the RCMP, even if they were individually not interested in being part of the union, would have to at least pay dues to the union. This is the process that exists. This is not analogous to simply whether or not an individual chooses to sign up with the local Rotary Club, or Elks, or something like that. This is a question of a whole professional group being brought into a union, potentially against the preferences of some of those members. This is more analogous to a general election in which we would respect and widely recognize the importance of a secret ballot.

Another comment that some members have made during this debate is that secret ballots reduce the rate of unionization. Frankly, that tips their hand a bit because the goal should not be to ensure the maximum level of unionization. The goal should be to ensure a fair process whereby workers can decide if they want to be part of a union. Of course, one could design a system, maybe a card check or something else, that would maximize the rates of certification, but if that happens at the expense of a fair and democratic process in which workers can actually express themselves, then that is not the best direction to go. The goal should be a fair process, and then we would let those who are involved in a fair process decide. A fair process in a democracy will produce the best outcome according to democratic principles, but if we do not have a fair process just because we want a particular outcome, that being higher rates of unionization, that is obviously hardly fair.

That deals with some of the strands in the debate today. I want to just mention what I see as the foundational motivating arguments for a secret ballot. Why do we generally accept that secret ballots are important? First, I think we all understand that people have a right to privacy with respect to their political opinions. Of course, people have the right to express their opinions on issues like certification and other issues, but they also have a right to not express their opinions, to not wish for their co-workers, their employees, even members of their family to know how they vote or how they feel about difficult political questions. This right to privacy really emanates from the idea of autonomy, the idea of self-ownership, that our political opinions are our own and therefore we have the right to decide if we wish to dispose of them in one particular way or another. This sense of the separation of the private space from the public space is foundational to our concept of liberal democracy. It is why we have a secret ballot.

Of course, the secret ballot ensures protection from reprisals. I talked before in the House on a previous bill about the history of secret ballots and how one time when we had public ballots people could be intimidated. They could face reprisals, or could lose employment as a result of how they voted in the then-public ballot. Thus we moved to a secret ballot.

Another reason we have secret ballots is protection against corruption. If we see how someone votes there is a greater risk of someone being offered an inducement. That cannot happen if there is a secret ballot.

Finally is the importance of a vote being preceded by deliberation. This is not possible in the context of a card check system, where someone might sign the card and then read an article or develop new information and think something different later on. One does not have the option of changing one's mind in a card check system but in a secret ballot process there is deliberation, debate, good discussion, and then individuals can come to their conclusions at the appropriate time.

For these reasons, despite some good aspects, I will have to oppose the bill unless the government accepts an amendment to respect the right of members of the RCMP to vote by a secret ballot.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member on her speech. I understand she had a constituency office opening last week, so I will congratulate her on that as well. I hear from my in-laws that it was well attended.

With respect to her speech, I want to ask about the issue of the secret ballot. It is one the official opposition has raised a number of times. Government members have told us that a secret ballot is still possible, but it is not guaranteed. It could happen, but it would not have to happen. Conservatives do not think it is good enough that members might have the opportunity to express themselves in the most democratic way, but there is no guarantee.

I wonder if the member could tell us why she thinks that members of the RCMP should not have the assurance of knowing that they will actually be able to use the most democratic way possible, a secret ballot, when they consider certification.

[Petitions, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition in support of Cassie and Molly's law, a private member's bill put forward by the member for Yorkton—Melville, which deals with the issue of protecting the lives of pre-born children in cases where the mother wishes to carry the pregnancy to term.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about how legislation apparently aligns the process with other parts of the public sector.

The member will know, I think, that every other time there has been certification within the public sector, there has been a secret ballot process. There are allegations that there could be intimidation if there is a secret ballot. I do not understand how that could even work. Even so, is that not particularly unlikely in the public sector?

Would the member not agree that in order to be consistent with certification processes in other parts of the public sector, there should be assurances in this legislation that there is a secret ballot for the RCMP?

[National Strategy for Safe Disposal of Lamps Containing Mercury Act, May 30th, 2016]

I have a point of order, Mr. Speaker. There are no questions asked during private member's business outside of the mover.

[Income Tax Act, May 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the interventions from my friend across the way.

Let me be clear that this is a tax change. It is a tax cut for some and an increase for others. However, the government is not clear on who the “some” and who the “others” are. It is like robbing Peter to save Paul without a great degree of clarity about which one is Peter and which one is Paul. Those making less than $45,000 a year, who are more likely to use TFSAs, would be worse off under this measure. Future generations would be worse off under this measure.

We are all going to vote on this at some point, and the parliamentary secretary needs to be clear about who the benefits go to. Someone making $100,000 a year and not using tax-free savings accounts is a bit better off. If people are in the middle of that bracket using a TFSA, then they are either worse off or neutral. However, if someone is on the low end, then one would definitely not be better off.

When we have these kinds of tax changes, reducing some and raising other brackets, we need to have a clear idea of what we are doing. We need to have a clear idea of why, rather than simply shifting things around perhaps, arguably, just for the sake of shifting.

[Income Tax Act, May 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I will try not to take up the rest of the 10 minutes with my response. Members know me not to be too verbose in the House, I am sure. I heard the member for Winnipeg North laugh at that, which is particularly funny.

With regard to the point about getting taxpayers value for money, it is particularly important, when we talk about something being infrastructure, to ensure that it actually is infrastructure. It is not because there are not important things that we should spend money on that are outside the category of infrastructure, but because there are specific economic arguments that one could make for deficit in the context of infrastructure that simply do not apply in other cases. The government is spending far more this year in terms of its deficit than its total spending on infrastructure. Therefore, it is pretty clear that there is a disconnect here. Again, as I was saying as we wrapped up, child care just is not infrastructure.

I want to quickly come back to the parliamentary secretary's question about lower income people not having money to put in their TFSAs. Again, I think some Canadians who are on the lower income end work very hard to save that much. It may not be most who can approach that maximum, but even someone who would have saved $6,000 or $7,000 a year would be losing out because of reducing the cap. More to the point, those wealthier Canadians, as I explained in my speech in some detail, are more likely to use RRSPs as opposed to TFSAs for a saving vehicle. We should do everything we can to expand TFSAs precisely because of the sort of differential positive impacts on those who are in the middle and lower income end.

[Income Tax Act, May 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his kind words and obviously there is a lot of meat there.

Let me go in reverse order and see if I can get to the second point. I already addressed the issues around TFSAs.

On the question of infrastructure and whether it is good for the next generation, infrastructure is used over an extended period of time. The issue is that the next generation will have to invest in new infrastructure. We will never stop needing to spend money on infrastructure.

We have to spend on it now for the future, but future generations will have to continue to spend money on the maintenance of existing infrastructure and on new infrastructure. The analogy made by some is, well, would we not go into debt to get a mortgage because we would use the house for a long time? If we had to buy the equivalent of a house every year, we probably would not take out a mortgage. If we took out a mortgage, we would not have money to buy the house in the next year and the next year after that. That is kind of where the analogy falls down.

The other issue with the government's budget, and I encourage Canadians to look at the chart on page 91 of the budget which lays out what is infrastructure, is that the debt the government is accumulating here, much of it is not for traditional infrastructure. It is not for building that bridge or road that will exist for a long time. Child care is even included on the page 91 grid on infrastructure.

Obviously taking care of children is important. There is a role for government in providing direct support to parents for child care, but I do not think—

[Income Tax Act, May 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this important bill. I will say at the outset that it is good to be back talking about the business of the nation again. As much as the conversation that happened this morning needed to happen, it is very good to be back to the things that Canadians are most concerned about, which is the economy, jobs, their well-being and that of society as a whole.

There are some significant concerns about the bill that we need to draw particular attention to. We in the opposition have been doing that over the course of this debate, and we will continue to do that. We will continue to do our job, which is to highlight problems with government legislation, suggest improvements, and to do so in a fair-minded and constructive way.

Just by way of some review, the legislation that is before us would make two different changes to our tax system.

The first change is that it would make a modest reduction to some middle-income earners' taxes while introducing a tax increase for those at the high end. However, this change would not be revenue neutral. Rather, it would significantly add to the deficit, and over a number of years, significantly add to the debt. That is one of the changes.

The second change that the legislation would make is that it would do away with the higher cap on tax-free savings accounts that was implemented by our previous government and did exist. There was a limited opportunity for Canadians to save at that higher level. However, it would now cut back on the amount that Canadians can save tax-free.

I want to start my remarks here by talking about one specific aspect of this issue, and that is the issue of equality. Members on all sides of the House are concerned with equality. They want to ensure that everybody has a shot. They want to ensure that everybody in Canada has a similar shot at doing well. That is really a principle that we all come at perhaps from slightly different perspectives and slightly different emphases.

On its face, it seems that the bill was advanced with an eye to equality. However, if we dig into the details, I think there are some serious problems from an equality perspective in terms of the actual impact that the bill would have. I would describe it as maybe a first-year undergraduate version of equality. It may be well-intentioned but it would not actually have the desired impact.

Let me start by saying that for me the most important measure of equality is something called “intergenerational earnings elasticity”. This is a measure of the likelihood that a person will perform at the same economic level as their parents relative to the rest of society; in other words, it measures movement between different income quintiles. Therefore, if I come from a high-income family and was almost certainly going to have a high-income family myself, that would be bad from an equality perspective using this metric of intergenerational earnings elasticity. This does not mean that we want people who are well off now to do worse. Rather, it means that, relative to each other, we want to have a society where people who had lower incomes can move ahead of others, and vice versa, a society where opportunity is more fluid and not fundamentally shaped by who our parents are or where they came from.

This information is tracked, and there was a report that came out in 2012 that looked at intergenerational earnings elasticity. What was interesting to me, and made me very proud as a Canadian, was that we performed particularly well. As I recall, we were fourth place in the world overall. It is interesting that we actually performed better than stereotypically more left-wing countries, and we performed better than stereotypically more right-wing countries. Where we were at, and likely where we have been over the course of our history, was in a relative sweet spot by providing not only necessary social programs but also allowing a healthy level of free enterprise that allows for economic growth and allows people to pursue economic opportunities that perhaps their parents did not have. That is one measure, intergenerational earnings elasticity. It is a measure on which we have historically done very well.

The other question might be the performance of the middle class. I have quoted this before. This is a quote from the former secretary of state, now presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, when talking about the Canadian middle class. She said:

Canadian middle class incomes are now higher than in the United States. They are working fewer hours for more pay, enjoying a stronger safety net, living longer on average, and facing less income inequality.

There are two ways of measuring the performance of the middle class. Well, there are more than two, but these are two significant ones: looking at median income and median net worth. Between 1999 and 2012, the median net worth of Canadian families rose by 78%. That translated to more than a 50% growth in net worth for every income quintile, except the lowest, which still grew but did not grow as much. Therefore, when it comes to median net worth, we are doing very well.

Median, by the way, is typically used as a measure of middle-class performance. It is better than an average measure, because an average metric can be skewed upward by groups who are doing particularly well, but median gets us closer to looking at those actually in the middle and how they are doing.

There was a study that came out in The New York Times in 2014 that showed real inflation-adjusted median income—I am talking about median income now—went up by more than 20% since the beginning of the last decade. By the way, at the same time, median income was roughly stagnant in the United States.

When it comes to intergenerational earnings elasticity and the performance of the middle class, Canada historically has done and is doing very well. That is important by way of context, because it seems that some members in the House have this revolutionary spirit when it comes to our economy—that we need to upend the way our economy functions now as it just is not working—but if we look at any credible measure of equality or middle-class performance, Canada is in a strong position. That does not mean we cannot do better, but we should recognize where we are and recognize the risks of dramatic or revolutionary changes in our fiscal policy.

I want to say, on the equality front, that at the same time as being very much concerned about equality, I and most of us on this side of the House would strongly reject the politics of envy. We would reject the idea that we should in some way regret the success of those who are doing well. The focus of public policy should be on helping the poor and the middle class. We do not need to focus on improving the lot of those who are well off, but we should not regret the fact that there are some people doing well.

Those people are important members of our community as well, and very often those who are well off are contributing to the community in ways that they are able to do, in particular, because of their wealth or position. That is an important point about equality. It is not about trying to level down those at the top. Rather, it is trying to build up those who are in the middle and those who are particularly struggling. Those are some underlying equality principles, at least as I understand them.

Let us, then, talk about specific measures in Bill C-2 and how they would impact equality. First, we know that this bill would provide a tax cut that would not impact those who are worse off. The tax cut specifically targets those who are making between $45,282 and $90,563. It would not have any impact on those who are making less than $45,000 a year, and that could, by the way, be families with a family income of $70,000 or $80,000 a year, if the earnings are shared by a couple. There would be absolutely no impact of this tax reduction.

Canadians should know that and reflect on the fact that this has a somewhat strange view of middle class. To get the benefit of the middle-class tax cut, one has to already be doing reasonably well. This certainly does not do much for those who, in the Prime Minister's oft-repeated phrase, are seeking to join the middle class.

However, more than that, this bill would lower the limit for putting money into tax-free saving accounts. The data suggests that many people who have low and middle incomes make very good use of tax-free saving accounts.

More than half of those who max out tax-free savings accounts are making less than $60,000 a year, so reducing the power of this vehicle is the only thing in the bill that impacts those who are making less than $45,000 a year, who arguably need the help the most.

This is a rather strange concept of equality, and although taxpayers get a benefit when they start to make $45,000 year, we know the way the tax system works here that they benefit from this change to a greater extent the more of that income tax bracket they cover. Therefore, people who are making just over $90,000 like this policy the most. They are going to benefit the most. A family making $180,000 is really in that sweet spot for earning the tax cut. Again, there are newer, higher taxes when they hit $200,000. However, a family income approaching $400,000 could actually be significantly to the positive because of these tax changes. Therefore, that is a bit of a strange approach if the objective is equality.

The impact on people making less than $45,000 a year with this tax change would be they would be losing the opportunity to invest in a tax-free savings account. They would be losing the opportunity to save in the same way, to the same degree, for their future.

One other point I want to make about tax-free savings accounts is that there are specific things within them that are pro-equality. The impact of TFSAs is greater for those who are lower income. This is because of the relative value of an investment in a tax-free savings account versus an investment in an RRSP. These are different savings vehicles. Canadians who are doing financial planning will potentially choose between putting money in a tax-free savings account or in an RRSP. The difference is that if they put their money in an RRSP they get a tax deduction at the beginning, but then they pay tax on it when it is converted to a RRIF and withdrawn from the RRIF in the future. On a tax-free savings account they have to pay tax on that money up front, but then they can accumulate interest tax-free.

They are different kinds of vehicles, and I would obviously encourage Canadians to save their money in one or both of these vehicles. However, the greatest value of an RRSP is for those who can achieve a significant tax differential between the taxes they would have paid on that money. They are not paying tax on it during their working years, but then they do pay tax in the future. Therefore, if they are paying income tax at a very high rate and they can reduce that amount during their working life, but then during their retired years they can draw on that and pay a much lower rate of tax, that is really where the greatest value is in an RRSP.

On the other hand, Canadians who are making more modest incomes, who are not in the higher tax brackets, are more likely to opt for the use of the tax-free savings accounts because they do not get the same benefit from that differential. This explains why Canadians of modest and lower incomes clearly use tax-free savings accounts at very significant levels.

The argument has been used on the other side that it is only well-off people who have $10,000 they can save. I am not convinced that is true. There are many modest- and low-income Canadians who make significant sacrifices, not necessarily because they have to this year, but because they believe it is important for them to put money aside for a rainy day or for opportunities for themselves and their children in the future. There are many Canadians who do that, and that is often a very good choice to make.

With regard to the specific point about the difference between the tax treatment of TFSAs and RRSPs, if very wealthy Canadians have $10,000 sitting around, they are probably more likely to put it into an RRSP than in a TFSA. The point is that, as much as well-off people have more money to save, TFSAs are a specific vehicle that is specifically providing a greater relative advantage to those who are of modest and lower income. Therefore, it is important to understand that TFSAs are in many ways inherently more of an equal or pro-equality type of saving vehicle.

As we talk about equality, I think it is important to say, as well, that inherently debt is regressive; that is, accumulating deficits and debt is inherently a measure that is not conducive to income equality because it assigns costs to future generations, to children, people who do not have economic means, at least not right now. It says to the next generation, “Here is more money that you have to spend, in addition to dealing with your needs, because we expect you to be working hard to take care of our needs”. It assigns the cost of present needs to future generations. That, obviously, is not conducive to equality.

Telling my three-year-old daughter, Gianna, that she has to pay for social programs that I want to use today is not something that those who are genuinely seeking equality should be doing. We should be paying for present needs with present dollars.

It is worth underlining, in terms of the measures of Bill C-2, that because the tax changes do not balance out, this is going to cost a significant amount of money over the next few years. We are going to be spending billions of dollars simply because of the poorly thought-out hole in the government's budget. It is telling that the Liberals said, during the election campaign, that it would be revenue neutral. They told Canadians that their tax changes would be revenue neutral and, in fact, they were not.

Maybe this is because they were not being truthful; but maybe it is that they just did not know, because they got the numbers wrong. I think either of those is pretty concerning. This is a problem. I think it is a problem that the government should have remedied, and could still remedy.

I think it is very clear, looking at the bill, that there are significant equality problems with it.

Measures that would have been more pro-equality would have been to look for ways to lower taxes for those who are at the bottom.

I have to say that this is exactly what the previous Conservative government did. We lowered the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%. That is the tax that everybody pays. That is the tax that all Canadians pay. We also lowered the lowest marginal tax rate. That was one of the important tax changes we made. We made necessary EI reforms, which would have allowed reductions to EI premiums over the long term. It is no coincidence that all of these taxes that we sought to impact were taxes that had the biggest impact on lower-income Canadians. Cutting the GST, cutting the lowest marginal tax rate, and undertaking those necessary steps that opened the door for lower EI premiums were necessary measures to help those, in particular, who needed the help the most.

If we then compare that with what the government would do in Bill C-2, there is a clear difference. When I sometimes hear members opposite, even the Prime Minister, say that the previous government was helping those who are better off, it is always telling that they never mention a specific tax measure. I have never heard the Prime Minister cite specific tax measures or tax changes we made, in the context of that claim. That is because all of the tax changes we made were really with an eye to those on the low- and middle-income end of things.

Of course, we did cut business taxes, as well. Those are the kinds of measures that help job creation. They help low-income Canadians. They help unemployed Canadians get jobs.

I think it is important, when we think about social equality, to dig deeper into it than just the slogan. It is important to look at how we are performing as a country, first, to look at measures like the performance of our middle class, to look at things like intergenerational earnings elasticity, and then say, “This is where we are now. Now, how do we improve our performance?”

Bill C-2 would not improve our performance. By getting rid of TFSAs and by denying any benefit of these tax changes for those who are less well off, the bill is not pro-equality. We could do better. There are better measures that we could be proposing, and I would hope to see the government be willing to make some of those changes.