We do support, for new manufacturing, investment through a targeted program, and tax cuts for those measures, rather than across-the-board corporate tax cuts, which mainly benefit the energy and financial sectors, which, frankly, today don't really need it, I would think. Building on the partial success of the automotive strategy, we support a temporary investment tax credit for investment in new manufacturing for machinery and equipment.
Let me just elaborate quickly on our suggestion on using EI for training.
In Canada, when maternity benefits were put into the EI act, there was a concern that we in the union movement would stop bargaining maternity benefits because it was provided for under employment insurance. The government put a program in place that said if you negotiate or if you're not in a union and the employer delivers maternity benefits that are superior to those in the act, they actually get a premium rebate on their unemployment insurance. Last year, Canadian corporations realized $1.3 billion in tax savings in their EI premiums for giving maternity benefits to Canadians that were superior to those in the act.
We say why not do the same thing with training, and incentivize training through that act rather than giving back money through notional unemployment insurance surpluses? There is lots of room to move without having to move too far or too radically in the tax system.
But blanket exemptions don't work. And when you keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.... I'm told that's the definition of insanity. That's what we keep doing.