Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Vanneste, I have a couple of questions.
I'm pretty excited this week. I think a number of things have been done that are really positive for the Canadian economy. Indeed that's backed up by people like Don Drummond, chief economist at the TD Bank.
In The Globe and Mail, it said that “Canadians should be celebrating another significant payment against the public debt”. It further said that “critics charge the choice of spending cuts was 'political'. This is utter silliness.”
The National Post editorial said that “Mr. Harper's belt-tightening will be good for the overall economy. The Prime Minister deserves credit for doing the right thing.”
In your brief, you made a contention that lower taxes will lead to increased competitiveness. I agree with this on a couple of different levels. In the context of a minority government, I think it's quite novel that this government is not trying to buy votes with tax dollars. Maybe you can just talk about the overall benefit to the Canadian economy over the long term.