Income Tax and the Poverty Line

The Canada Council on Social Development in 2003 (latest statistics I could find) set the poverty line for a single person in Canada in a range from $13,680- $19,795 depending on where one lived. For a community about the size of Brantford it was set at $16,979. Yet the Federal Government set the basic personal exemption for a single taxpayer at $7,756 for 2003. That means that people who were living below the poverty line were still required to pay income tax on a portion of their earnings and even those at or just above the poverty line were also taxed to below the poverty line. This makes little sense to me. The basic exemption should at least reflect the poverty line in Canada and not tax people into poverty. It's not like the Federal Government is short of money with their hugh surpluses, but I guess it's up to the poor people to have to pay for David Dingwall's gum.