Finance committee  I totally agree with your comments. The rates, in terms of where the small business tax rate cuts in, are low. So we have thousands of companies across Canada that employ a lot of Canadians and are still paying the high rate of tax, even though they may be only relatively small c

Finance committee  Yes, certainly. It will be tremendous for Newfoundland and Labrador from the perspective that it's going to create substantial work in a remote part of our province. It's going to employ a lot of people. But beyond that, both for our province and for the rest of Canada, it will

Finance committee  If you want to find examples of things that don't work, you can always find them. When you look at what small businesses do directly, they outsource, they build themselves into global value chains all around the world, and they are able to compete and develop value. When services

Finance committee  On the question on P3s and my personal involvement in these organizations, I am not involved in any way with any companies that provide P3s directly to government. I speak on behalf of the St. John's Board of Trade, with our 800-plus members and tens of thousands of employees. Wh

Finance committee  Yes, there are. For example, we do the construction work for many of the federal government programs, so there are P3s. My comment was directed more towards the fact that it's not the benefit to the companies but more the benefit to the government, because we believe that private

Finance committee  I disagree with that, from the perspective that when you look at an infrastructure deficit, the deficit is always relative to something. There is no absolute value as to what infrastructure should be. When we put money into infrastructure, whether it's in small communities for sc

Finance committee  I couldn't say it better than that. You've got it perfect.

Finance committee  Well, sure. You already see right now where government will outsource things like road building to the construction industry participants. They can do that work because that's what they do every day. It's not a core part of government, but it's something the private sector can

Finance committee  Certainly. It's important that Canada and the Canadian provinces maintain a competitive tax regime. When we're looking at the United States and other competing governments with which we compete for work and workers, we see that Canada right now, in its tax regime, is reasonably

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of the committee, for making time for the St. John's Board of Trade to speak on this subject. I'm going to keep my presentation in the context of Canada's position in the global economy. When you look around the world right now, you