I'll just say that we do have high taxes in Canada. I've heard some comments in favour of making taxes higher. Taxes in Canada are already high. Arguably, taxpayers might be getting a little more disillusioned when it comes to what they're getting for their taxes. People will pay taxes quite happily as individuals if they think they're getting good service for what they're paying, but with marginal tax rates just about everywhere in Canada already up over 50% and often cutting in at quite low levels of income, I think it's reasonable to think that a lot of people are wondering whether they really are getting their money's worth.
Corporate income tax rates are quite high in Canada as well. It's not so much because we've been raising them, although in a couple of cases we've seen some discriminatory tax increases. When I say that, I mean picking sectors that seem politically unpopular at the time and going after them. We've seen some tax increases, but by and large, the problem we face in Canada is that other countries have been bringing their corporate tax rates down. It's hard to say how much of this is a difference in philosophical orientation. Corporations are legal fictions, after all. Ultimately, taxes are paid by people, whether it's the owners of the companies or the people who work for the companies or the people who buy from them.
In Canada, as other countries have been bringing their rates down, we've been getting less competitive. When I see investment rates much lower in Canada than they are in other OECD countries—especially, as I emphasized, the United States—I can't help but think that maybe they've gotten a bit ahead of us there. If they have a larger market and if incomes are rising faster so that it's more attractive to come into those markets, then it's a problem for Canada.
We can turn it around, but it would be nice to see us a little bit less focused on using taxes as weapons against, to use the phrase I heard earlier, “web giants”. Okay, maybe we don't love them, but let's think harder about whether our being irritated with a company is really the basis for tax measures, because with that type of thing, what goes around comes around.