Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Mark Yakabuski. I am very pleased to be appearing once again before the Committee.
There are three points in particular that I would like to make.
First, I must commend the government for the measures announced several weeks ago by the Minister of Finance with respect to corporate and personal tax cuts.
The corporate and personal income tax changes announced recently by the Minister of Finance will tremendously improve Canada's productive and competitive position around the world. I certainly want to take the time to applaud those changes. There's still more work to be done. This is a never-ending game. As a result of the changes announced by the Minister of Finance, Canada moved from the second-worst record with respect to capital taxation in the OECD to the eleventh-worst place in the OECD. A lot of other countries are moving in this direction and we have to make sure we keep up with them, but the measures announced by the Minister of Finance are very important.
The second thing I'd like to say is that the single, most important tax measure the government could take to improve productivity in this country is to convince those provinces that have not done so already to harmonize their provincial sales taxes. No other measure would add more to the productive capacity of this country. I have the pleasure of dealing with many provincial governments every day, and I believe very firmly that with an innovative combination of the carrot and the stick, we can convince those provinces that have not done so to harmonize their sales taxes. It would be a tremendous competitive boost for Canada.
The last thing I want to say is that we have a tremendous infrastructure deficit and a tremendous infrastructure challenge in Canada. The $33 billion allocated by the government in the last two budgets, over a seven-year period, to renew the infrastructure in Canada is obviously a very considerable sum of money. However, I think we have to bear in mind that in 2005, for example, total world economic losses related to weather-related events cost $850 billion to the world's economy.
Lord Levene, the head of Lloyd's of London, arrived in Canada yesterday and he's here in Ottawa today. He will remind all of us that climate change is not something we are looking forward to; climate change is something we are dealing with today. The fact we have to keep in mind is that even if we were to reduce the vehicle population of the planet by 50% tomorrow, or close every coal-fired plant around the world, or delay the development of the Alberta tar sands, there is still enough CO2 in the environment to motor the forces of climate change for at least the next 50 years, according to the International Panel on Climate Change.
What does that mean? It means I think this is the real challenge. Let's make Canada the country that most successfully adapts to climate change, and let's do that by taking hold of this infrastructure challenge, by encouraging our municipalities and our provincial governments to, of course, invest vigorously themselves, and by encouraging private-public partnerships at every opportunity. I believe, quite frankly, that the federal government should in fact tie much of its infrastructure spending allocations to the provinces to some component that relates directly to measures that help Canada adapt to climate change. That means rebuilding our water and sewage systems in a very big way.
It's a major challenge, but it is doable. What is needed is the will to do it.
Thank you very much.