Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Stewart-Patterson, you’ll certainly earn your pay check this afternoon!
You talk about fiscal federalism. You are probably referring to the debate surrounding the fiscal imbalance, without actually saying it. Your association wrote this about the federal government:
[...] it should use its leverage to persuade the provinces to reduce their corporate income tax rates, eliminate capital taxes more quickly and convert remaining provincial sales taxes to a value-added base.
I find it hard to imagine the kind of measures that the federal government could take to do this. Naturally, the federal government can have a negative impact. For example, in the case of Quebec, Mr. Audet has announced that capital taxes will be cut by half over the next three or five years, if I remember correctly. At the same time, cutbacks to the daycare assistance program which brought about a shortfall of 800 million dollars per year were being announced. I can understand why he’s reducing capital taxes more slowly.
What kind of measures are you thinking about?