But I think, at least with the benefit of hindsight, if it was good policy today, it would have been good policy in 2007, and we'd be better off had you followed that advice.
My next question is about the punishing increases in payroll tax, employment insurance premiums post-2011, that you announced in your fiscal update. According to Dale Orr, these amount to $1,200 in additional tax for a two-earner family and a $9,000 additional cost for a small business with 10 employees.
I have a double-barrelled question on this issue. One is a question of semantics. I don't think you could deny that this is a tax hike, so that would be my question. Whether it's imposed through some automatic mechanism or not, it's still a tax hike, and you would have the authority, if you so chose, to have an additional year of EI premium freezes, for example.
My second part of the question is, given the fragile state of the economy, given that the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who was here this morning, has downgraded his forecast for the outer years, partly because of the strong dollar, do you really think the economy can absorb such abrupt and large increases in the payroll tax as you have imposed in your fiscal update?