Maybe I can just start by saying thank you, because I know that you've heard from many of your constituents, many people, whether they're professionals or small business owners in your riding, and you've come to me with the comments and come to me with the ideas that people are bringing forward. It's really only with this that we can get these proposals right. That is in fact what we're trying to do.
I will say that we have really important objectives in dealing with a tax system that's created, over the last half a generation, an increasing ability for people to use tax planning so that they get themselves into a lower tax rate than other Canadians. Going along with that, as people do that tax planning, as more money doesn't go into the active business but instead is invested in passive investments that are essentially intended to stay there for the long term and not actually advance the business, that's money that doesn't go into our economy.
We decided, as a country—and I think that decision was a good one, and it was by successive governments—to have low corporate tax rates that encourage investment, and low small-business tax rates that encourage people to start and grow a small business. But when those encouragements leave money not actually doing what we were hoping it would do, growing the business, we are not doing what we hoped. We are trying to encourage people to invest in their active business with a low tax rate, and at the same time make sure that they reinvest in that business by creating the incentive for them to do so, and if not, for them to take the money out of the business, as they will, for the management of their family affairs.
We think that these incentives will help to create a tax system that's fairer and also improve our economic activity.