Mr. Speaker, it is great to see you in the chair today.
I would like to start by thanking the very smart voters of Elgin—Middlesex—London who re-elected me as their member of Parliament and by thanking the great team that made it possible, including my wife who has supported me through four elections, and the hardworking staff who help me with my vision of constituency service.
I am honoured to represent those people here in this place. I represent an area of Canada that has spectacular beauty, a place of incredible history, a place of tradition and family values. Elgin—Middlesex—London is exactly as the name suggests, a sum of different parts. It has 80 kilometres of Canada's southern coasts, including Lake Erie beaches and fishing ports, bluffs, incorporating Canada's early pioneer history.
Elgin—Middlesex—London is proud of its agricultural history and century old family farms and how it feeds Canada. Elgin—Middlesex—London is a mixture of small- and medium-size municipalities, groups of villages and towns with a proud heritage and hard-working people, including part of Canada's tenth largest city, London, with all the cultural diversity and big city offerings of university, colleges, exciting sports teams and a mix of commerce and manufacturing.
Elgin—Middlesex—London also includes St. Thomas, Ontario, a fun-sized city that has its own small town volunteerism and family friendly atmosphere. Elgin—Middlesex—London also embraces the Middlesex portion, the thriving municipality of Thames Centre and more great agricultural production by great farming families.
As members will realize, this riding is a snapshot of just about all things Canadian: hardworking families; manufacturing, big, small, and medium; post-secondary education; seniors and veterans; agricultural producers, though back home it is still okay to call them farmers; big and medium cities and small villages; and even commercial fishing; and proud Canadians who work hard and believe in democracy, the rule of law and who want a good life for their families.
Now that I have shared with members where I am from, let me share why this budget brings Elgin—Middlesex—London something for all, sharing the bounty that is Canada for those who work hard every day to make it that way.
Let us first start with what this budget brings for families. I cannot start with what the budget brings without saying what has already been done for families over the five years of this government. Let us talk about cutting taxes 120 times since forming government. Let us talk about cutting the lowest personal income tax rate to 15%. Let us talk about removing a million Canadians from the tax rolls. Let us talk about increasing the amount Canadians can earn tax-free. Let us talk about reducing the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%, and putting nearly $1,000 back in the pocket of every Canadian family.
We introduced the universal child tax benefit, offering families more choice in child care by providing $1,200 a year. I could go on and I think I will.
We introduced the child tax credit. We introduced the child fitness tax credit. Later on, I will tell the House about another new child tax credit. We brought in the landmark tax-free savings account, the best and newest way to save money since the RRSP. We eliminated the marriage penalty for one-earner families. We introduced the registered disability savings plan. We introduced a first-time homebuyer's tax credit and expanded it.
Due to the strong work of this government over its first five years, we have a strong record of tax relief that includes total savings for a typical family of over $3,000. That is what we did before this budget.
Let us talk about what we did in this one. There is a new child arts tax credit, which one of the members just mentioned. There is a new family caregiver tax credit. There is an enhanced medical expenses tax credit, as we removed the $10,000 limit on this credit. We are extending the eco-energy retrofit program so that people can make their homes more energy efficient, therefore saving themselves money. We are helping students in a number of ways, allowing them to earn more money towards an exemption on their loans.
It is incredible what we have been able to do for families. I wish I had time just to talk about families, but I am going to switch to business.
What have we done for small business? Again, I will not start with what is in this budget. Let us start with what we have already done, what we have been able to accomplish in our first five years of government.
We have increased the small business limit to $500,000. The amount of money small businesses can earn has grown so that small businesses can actually become bigger while still paying small business tax rates.
We reduced the small business tax rate, speaking of that, from 12% to 11%, making small businesses more successful. What do we have in this budget for small businesses? There is a new hiring tax credit for small business, a temporary one-time credit using money that would be submitted to the government for EI. People can use it to hire new people and expand employment in this country.
Reducing red tape is something I have heard a lot. As a small businessman myself, when knocking on the doors of businesses during this last campaign I heard a lot about red tape and how much time it takes for businesses just to comply with all the regulations at the different levels of government. We will reduce that. We have put together a commission and we have already started our work.
Supporting youth entrepreneurs is in this budget. As a person who started my own business when I was in my teens, I understand what this is like. That was a few years ago. We put $10 million in additional support toward youth entrepreneurs, young people who want to reach out and grab the bounty that Canada has, operate their own businesses and, yes, in time employ other Canadians and increase employment.
We extended the accelerated capital cost allowance. It will help manufacturers and businesses purchase the equipment they need to make their businesses more efficient and profitable and, therefore, be able to expand their businesses, hire more people and, as a result, create more jobs. That is for small businesses. There is more but I do not have time for all of it. I am going to go on to big businesses now.
