Forty-nine cents per day. According to the federal government, that's the amount of money that an average family earning $15,000 to $30,000 per year will now keep in their pockets as a result of tax changes.

This rises to $1.10 per day if your family earns between $45,000 and $60,000 a year. Not very inspiring.

That's not enough to buy a coffee let alone pay for child care.

A 15 per cent personal income tax rate was proposed by the Liberals. But when the Conservatives became the minority government, they held the rate at 15.5 per cent. Now, they have finally rolled the rate back to 15 per cent.

As for the GST cut starting Jan. 1, the more money you spend, the more you benefit. Buy a Mercedes and see a big impact. Buy clothes and you won't see much difference at all. Keep in mind that we already don't pay GST for basic groceries, prescription drugs, rent and child care. Therefore, it is widely believed that this cut in GST will not significantly benefit ordinary Canadians.

In the latest throne speech and subsequent mini-budget, the Harper Conservatives failed to address the growing prosperity gap between the very rich and all those middle class and working families who aren't benefiting from Canada's economic success. With soaring surpluses, the government should be making real, long-term investments in people and communities…..

The total cost for Harper's tax cut plan is $190-billion over six years.

Fully phased in, these cuts will shrink government's capacity to invest by a staggering $40 billion every year. Instead of investing, they chose to hand out $14 billion in corporate tax cuts -- half of which will go to the banks and the oil companies.

These cuts will widen, not narrow, the prosperity gap between the rich and the rest.

Despite the short-term gains, you'll end up paying anyway. Federal off-loading ultimately trickles down to impact municipal governments that struggle to fund local infrastructure and services. It is not unlikely that this results in increased property taxes.

This does not reflect what people in Nanaimo-Cowichan have told me they want. They want to build the kind of Canada they wish to leave for their children and their grandchildren. They want a fulfilling quality of life…