Mr. Speaker, the first thing I want to point out is that the economic legacy of Stephen Harper's government was to leave Canada in a recession in 2015. What will the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent's approach to taxation look like? If I may cut through his histrionics, it sounds like he is sincerely upset about the fact that we eliminated the non-refundable tax credit for public transit. That seems to be his plan for fighting climate change and poverty.
Since he has brought up this tax credit so many times over the past three years, let us see how much his constituents benefited from it. It amounted to a non-refundable tax credit of $13.25 a month for an RTC pass, which the taxpayer would get at the end of the year, after filing a tax return and receiving a notice of assessment. That is the measure my colleague is advocating. He has given us so much grief about our decision to eliminate this tax credit of $13.25 a month, which was granted at the end of the year, for those paying taxes, since it was non-refundable.
Meanwhile, he voted against the Canada child benefit, which gives an average of $5,500 annually, tax free, to 12,500 families in his riding. Let me repeat that. It gives 12,500 families $5,500 every year, tax free. That means 23,000 children in his riding are better off, for a total of $69 million.
Is my colleague going to cancel that? Is he telling Canadians he would like to cancel the Canada child benefit and bring back his public transit tax credit worth $13 a month, which is only collected at the end of the year when they do their tax returns? If he wants to make that the key message of his election campaign, I say “bring it on”.