Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to start with the Vancouver Board of Trade. I enjoyed your submission, actually. I just wanted to point out that we are moving toward corporate tax reductions--the end of corporate surtaxes and lower corporate tax rates of 19% by 2010--and hopefully we'll continue that trend. We agree with you on the Government of Canada's role in competitiveness and encouraging foreign investment.
The fourth point of your presentation actually talked about the measures the government could take so we could reprioritize our spending and maybe become a little bit smaller in government overall. You talked about a reallocation of 5% of program spending that would allow approximately $9 billion in savings, essentially.
Now, we just underwent a little bit of cost restructuring in Ottawa last week. Do you think that's sending the proper signal to business communities, that even though we're running a surplus, we are prepared to run a more efficient government?