Taxation  Our government trusts that parents know what is best for their children, but both the Liberals and the NDP are against putting money back into the pockets of hard-working families. In fact, the Liberals would reverse our tax cuts and want to impose more taxes on middle class Canadian families. On this side of the House, we will not hike taxes like the Liberals propose. Rather, we are proud to ensure that mom and dad have the final say in where their money is going for their family.

Taxation  Mr. Speaker, middle-class Canadians are better off because of our Conservative government. The median net worth of Canadian families has increased by 45% since we took office. For the first time, middle-income Canadians are better off than Americans.

Employment  Whether it is the rubber-stamping of botched foreign takeovers like Target, which resulted in more than 17,000 Canadians losing their jobs in 133 communities, including Coquitlam, or the destabilization of Canada's once-balanced economy, the Conservative approach is failing middle-class Canadians. Unlike the Conservatives, the New Democrats have a plan to create good jobs, which would immediately help working families. An NDP government would reduce taxes on Canada's real job creators, small and medium-sized businesses, and would launch an innovation tax credit to encourage investment.

Opposition Motion—Job Creation  Jobs that paid $25 an hour are being replaced with jobs that pay $13 or $14 an hour. Something is not working. When middle-class Canadians are earning $30,000 a year rather than $50,000 or $60,000, it is not easy for them to make their mortgage payments. It is hard to believe but it is true: banks look at what kind of job you have before they will give you a mortgage.

Opposition Motion—Job Creation  The Conservatives' strategy aims to make foreign multinationals wealthier, but it does not benefit the majority of middle-class Canadians whose jobs are unstable. The Conservative government's policy focused on natural resource development exposes jobs to the fluctuation of the raw materials market. This policy simply does not work, and in Quebec it does not create jobs—it destroys them.

Employment  Speaker, is that there are no jobs for them to get, and those guys want to give themselves a pat on the back. Middle-class Canadian families are working harder and harder and falling further and further behind. Under Conservative mismanagement, the Canadian economy actually shrank in November, and this on top of record high youth unemployment, at twice the national average, and 1.3 million Canadians still out of work.

Ethics  Now the Liberals made their name filling the box seats with cronies, but surely to God we have a higher ethical bar than the one used by the Liberals. Middle-class Canadians would love to go pro hockey games, but they would pay their own way, so I would like to ask the minister why it is that the Conservatives are allowing Canada Post to give out such expensive perks to insiders and pals?

Business of Supply  The Liberal Party’s priority is clear: we have to improve the security and prosperity of middle-class Canadians who have not seen a decent increase in their incomes for 30 years. Canadian families deserve to have a real and fair chance to succeed. In its economic vision, this government has failed to take into account what has always made Canada a prosperous country: diversity, balance and partnership among regions and economic sectors.

Business of Supply  That is not good enough. We need policies that impact the lives of everyday Canadians, of middle-class Canadians.

Business of Supply  While my New Democrat colleagues and I continue to roll out concrete proposals to support working and middle-class Canadians, the Liberals are continuing to cower with no ideas to propose other than their same old feeling of entitlement to power. New Democrats have a plan for the middle class, including a $15 minimum wage and child care that costs no parent more than $15 a day.

Business of Supply  Let us take the income-splitting tax cut, which does nothing for ordinary families and is particularly limited to those at the top end, and compare that with the member's proposals on affordable housing, which would do great good for middle-class Canadian families and seniors across the country. Yes, we have to live within our means. We in the Liberal Party have learned that and we have taught the Conservatives that. The NDP will never learn that, but we have done it.

Business of Supply  The government should be working very closely with the provincial governments to develop post-secondary education programs, for example, in order to ensure that workers have the skills they need for the future. That would be another way to ensure progress for middle-class Canadians.

Business of Supply  Yes, middle-class families are struggling and they do require measures to support them going forward, and that is the cornerstone of the policy of the Liberal Party. However, the solution to the woes and the challenges and the difficulties of middle-class Canadians is not to present a tax cut that would benefit only 15% of Canadian households. The C.D. Howe Institute, which is hardly a socialist, left-leaning institute, has come down strongly against this policy, pointing out that only 15% of Canadian households would receive anything at all and those that would receive the lion's share of the benefits are high-income households with children, such as the families of the Prime Minister and the leader of the third party, the Liberal Party.

Business of Supply  This means getting back to real prosperity, the long-term security it no longer has because of the precarious nature of the labour market, and to conditions that allow middle-class Canadians to hope for the same for their children, since this is no longer a sure thing. Over the holiday break, many of my colleagues probably had an opportunity not only to take a few days or weeks of vacation, but also to talk to people who are still very worried for their children.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Speaker, it is my absolute pleasure to speak to Bill C-31, the budget implementation bill. A solid middle class is the foundation of Canada's economy. Middle-class Canadians are the glue that binds our society together, and we recognize that our country can only be as strong as its middle class. Fortunately, Canada's middle class has seen increases of about 30% in their take-home income since 1976, and the share of Canadians living in lower-income families is now at its lowest level in the past three decades.