Thank you to all the witnesses for your presence today.
Mr. Wudrick, I want to begin with you. We as a government have lowered taxes 180 times since 2006. We've lowered the corporate tax rate, lowered the small business tax rate, lowered the GST, and lowered EI premiums. All of these measures we've undertaken empower individuals and businesses to make decisions to either spend or save. It gives them a choice.
For business, what they primarily tend to do with the added money is expand and create more jobs and employment and more economic opportunity for Canadians.
We've heard from other quarters that when we cut taxes as our government has been doing, it is a cost to the government, which to me is a little puzzling, and I hope you can clarify this. When we as a government cut taxes, is that a cost to the government, as in the government owns that money, or is it just putting more money back into the pockets of hard-working Canadians?