Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for being with us today.
I'd like to try to ask each of you a few questions. Since I don't have much time, I would appreciate it if you could try to be fairly concise in your answers.
Professor Brooks, you used the words “social engineering”, which would perhaps be a bit pejorative if I used it, although I have. I have said on a number of occasions that rather than government discriminating, shall we say, by providing tax credits for young hockey-playing Canadians but not for young violin-playing Canadians, we would prefer to see general income tax reductions rather than what one might call boutique tax cuts.
I will ask each of you whether you think that general income tax cuts would be preferable to narrowly directed tax credits as a matter of general tax policy.
Mr. Brooks, would you comment?