This past Saturday (June 14) marked Tax Freedom Day – the day Canadians have paid off the taxes they owe to government and can finally start working for themselves.

This is one of the earliest Tax Freedom Days in recent memory. Tax Freedom Day now falls a full 11 days earlier than when it did under the previous Liberal Government.

Since coming to office, the Conservative Government has:

Cut the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%; reduced personal income taxes; introduced tax credits for tools, textbooks, transit passes, and kids’ sports and other priorities and lowered taxes for manufacturers and small businesses.

As a result Canadian families are holding on to more of what they earn, with the typical Canadian working family saving over $3,300 compared to what they were allowed to keep just three short years ago.

Canadians can only wonder what will happen to Tax Freedom Day under a Stéphane Dion Liberal Government.

Struggling taxpayers have already heard Mr. Dion admit he has plans to increase the GST. Now they are witnessing him trying to peddle a brand new, never-before-seen kind of taxation with his proposed carbon tax.

This latest initiative will be a permanent new tax that will destroy jobs and drive up the cost of gas, electricity and everything else that Canadians buy. This new tax will be most devastating for Canadians living on fixed incomes. Much of their income is dedicated to paying for basic necessities: heating their home, paying their electricity bill and purchasing groceries. All these expenses would sky rocket under this new tax,

Canadians play by the rules and pay their taxes. The reason they work hard is because they want to build a better future for their families. It is not because they want to funnel over thousands of dollars in family income to the out-of-control spending of Stéphane Dion.

This year Canadians can be proud that their tax bills are going down, and their disposable incomes are going up. Why would anyone let Stéphane Dion and his Tax Tricks put all of this progress at risk?

Guy Lauzon, M.P.
Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry