Trudeau Champions Middle Class at Globe Debate

Canada can do better.

That’s why Liberals have a 3-point plan focused on making a real, positive difference in the lives of Canadians: we will invest to create jobs, we will grow the middle class, and we will help those working hard to join the middle class do so.

First, to create jobs our plan for Investment, Jobs and Growth will be the most significant new investment in our infrastructure in Canadian history.

We’ll invest $60 billion new dollars over 10 years — nearly doubling the current government’s planned investment.

The Liberal plan will deliver the long-term, stable and predictable funding that provinces, territories, and municipalities need.

Our plan is about building Canadian success now and well into the future.

We want to get you to work on time, and back home to your family safely each day; to get our products to market quicker and more efficiently, so our entrepreneurs can grow their companies and create jobs; to improve our quality of life: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the parks where our children play.

Our plan for Investment, Jobs and Growth is about doing for our kids and grandkids exactly what our parents and grandparents did for us: building a better country and giving hard-working Canadians a fair shot at success.

That’s why, as the second part of our plan, we’ll give the middle class a tax cut by asking the wealthiest 1% to pay a little bit more and put more money in families’ pockets to help raise their kids.

Third, we’ll invest in those Canadians working hard every day to join the middle class. We’ll make sure the ladder of opportunity that Canada has always provided for people who work hard becomes easier to climb.

With our Canada Child Benefit, if you’re a single mother making $30,000 and you have one kid, you’ll get $533 tax-free. Every month. That’s over $100 more a month than with Harper’s plan.

We’ll give lower-income Canadians a real chance to break out of poverty. Instead of giving child benefit cheques to the wealthiest, we’ll use that money to lift 315 thousand kids out of poverty. Nine out of 10 families will be better off, in hard dollars and cents, with the Liberal plan than they are under Harper’s plan.

We’ll also make investments in child care and social housing. After all, our communities cannot grow without them.

We need to remember that economic growth is not only about prosperity. It’s about building a country that gives everyone a real and fair chance to succeed. That is what history has taught us, and it’s what our future demands of us.

Confident, optimistic countries invest in their own future. Every time I look at my three kids I remember why that matters. I remember why it’s worth all the hard work.

Stephen Harper wants us to believe that better isn’t possible, and Thomas Mulcair’s empty promises prove he’s more focused on politics than on people.

That’s what sets us apart.

My friends, this is Canada. Better is always possible. And we’ll work hard together to build a better Canada.