It states:
[He] seemed to here to put his hope in the possibility that no one—including perhaps the Prime Minister—will bother reading as far as page 325 of the budget book. But there they might find Annex 2: Tax Measures. And there they will find several numbers that are not identified as cuts, but, in fact, the precise opposite.
That is a quote from Aaron Wherry.
Once again, when we talk about accountability, it is right there, and when we talk about credibility, it is there for people to see.
What we are looking at in this budget are taxes, which is what they are, on a huge number of goods. They have been listed over and over again by a number of my colleagues, so I will not go through every one of them. Basically, what we are looking at is absolutely astounding because we are not talking about pennies or hundreds or thousands of dollars. We are talking about taxes to the tune of billions of dollars, $7.8 billion over the next five years. That is what Canadians are going to be experiencing in the way of tax increases. To me, nobody, not even my colleagues across the way, can argue that they are not tax increases, whatever name they want to give them.
That again raises the question of credibility. When we look at the budget, the process of modernizing Canada's general preferential tariff regime for developing countries is being done at the same time as the Conservatives keep saying there are no tax increases. However, going back to the dictionary definition, these are taxes. There is no other way to look at them.
Looking at the detailed examples, bicycles have been explained enough times, but let us look at baby carriages. Ninety per cent of baby carriages are made overseas. This is going to hit low-income and middle-class people the hardest because when people have babies, they need baby carriages, and these taxes are very regressive.
Let us look at school supplies. Single parents and low-income families are already telling me they are stretched to the limit in having to pay additional school fees and picking up the cost of supplies. What we are looking at are huge increases, from 3% to 6.5%. We are looking at almost double the taxation.
Another cost that absolutely has touched my heart is the tax on wigs. Those who suffer from alopecia cannot get wigs covered. They definitely cannot get them covered in my province of British Columbia. Now we have a tax on wigs. It breaks my heart to see that. I have a granddaughter who suffers from alopecia. I know the pain and agony that families go through and this is definitely an additional burden on families. When one thinks about it, it is very mean-spirited.
Let us put out there that my friends across the aisle do not understand tariffs being duties or taxes. How do they justify taxing credit unions? They have taken away funding from credit unions, which means it is going to cost credit unions more at the very time they are giving huge tax breaks to their big bank friends.
Let me talk about the last one, which is paid parking. What does this have to do with tariffs on imported goods? This is about people going to see their loved ones in the hospital. It was bad enough there were parking costs, but now there are going to be taxes collected on it. This is a tax on the sick and their families and it is unacceptable. As for credibility, I look across the aisle and say, “Look in the mirror”.
