Thank you for the question.
Fiscal discipline is important. There's been a lack of fiscal discipline in a number of countries in the world and a lack of political will to correct it. That is the fundamental issue we are facing in Europe today, the political will to fix fiscal situations.
In Canada we're not faced with that. We created the economic action plan at a time of recession to protect jobs, families, and the Canadian economy. Part of the economic action plan was always to move back to balanced budgets, so we're staying the course and maintaining the balance that will take us to that good place of having a balanced budget in 2014-15.
We have a great advantage in Canada right now. That's why I encourage my colleagues on this committee, when they're out there in the next few months during the pre-budget consultations, to encourage business to invest. The balance sheets of corporate Canada are strong. In part they're strong because of our corporate tax reductions over the course of the past five years and continuing to January 1 of next year, when the federal corporate rate will drop to 15%. As you know, we've done this with the cooperation of most of the provinces, which have reduced their corporate tax rates gradually to 10% so that we will have a Canadian brand rate of 25%.
This is a great opportunity for Canada. We have the strongest financial system in the world, we have strong fiscal fundamentals in the Government of Canada, and we have strong business balance sheets. This is a chance to seize the Canadian advantage.