House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 58% of the vote.
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, I will tell the member who had it backward. In 2004-05 the previous government increased spending by 14.8%. I will tell the member who has it backward: the party opposite us in the House that thinks it is a good economic stimulus to bring in a carbon tax on poor people with fixed incomes in Canada, on seniors, on the manufacturing sector to drive up its costs. That is who got it backward.
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, as I say, we have been balanced in our approach. We have reduced taxes of all kinds in Canada, and particularly coming up to what we knew was going to be slower economic times this year and going into next year, we took the dramatic actions at the end of October 2007 to dramatically and historically reduce business taxes in this country. This provides a direct stimulus to the manufacturing sector in Canada which needs the help, as we know.
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, as I said, 1.4% of GDP is the stimuli, the total effect of the stimuli which we have provided by tax reductions since taking office.
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, the cumulative effect of the stimuli provided since 2006, including the dramatic business tax reductions in the fall economic statement, is 1.4% of GDP.
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, certainly we have seen very positive effects from the stimulus that we provided to the economy of Canada. This is a cumulative stimulus.
Since we took office in February 2006, we have reduced taxes of all kinds in Canada: personal income taxes; excise taxes; the consumption tax, the GST, by two full percentage points, one point of that occurring in January of this year--
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, we are comfortable with the forecasts that we have been using. We are comfortable with the fact that we are on track in this fiscal year.
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, I am pleased to report something that is not really news, because most of us on this side of the House are aware of it but apparently the member for Markham—Unionville is unaware of it. That is that Nova Scotia is quite comfortable with the steps we took to achieve fiscal balance in Canada, and Newfoundland and Labrador has proceeded to work with the agreement as well.
In fact, this has been a tremendous success in Canada, to move from fiscal imbalance to fiscal balance. Again, it is something that the previous government looked at, went into some one-time deals here and there with certain jurisdictions in Canada, but did not get the job done.
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, the member for Markham—Unionville has obviously been out of touch. If he is following the indices, he will know that last week the income trust indexes were up to where they were at the end of October 2006. If he is talking about some notional losses, they are not there in the market.
I realize that his party had planned to do what we eventually did. I realize that the Liberals did not have the courage to do it and they did not do it. However, our government, seeing the danger to the solidity of the Canadian tax system, took the action that needed to be taken to protect Canada.
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
Mr. Chair, I responded--
Business of Supply May 28th, 2008
No.