Has lowering taxes increased our businesses' competitive advantage over our US neighbours? Down the road, will some businesses prefer to set up shop in Canada, in light of our more competitive tax rate? Will lower taxes also have an impact on real employment levels?
We can see this from a chart that appears on another page. Today, the unemployment rate in the United States is higher that it is in Canada. For a period of about twenty years, the unemployment rate in Canada was always slightly higher than the US rate. Since 2006, the trend has shifted. Now, the Canadian rate is lower than the US rate by 2%.
Do you expect to see this trend continue, given all of the initiatives put in place on the personal and business tax front to improve our competitive position?