Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments and a question for the hon. member from Vancouver.
I do not think we Liberals need to take any lessons from the Reform Party when it comes to small business. We realize how important small and medium sized businesses are to the economy. It has been said many times and I will repeat it here. Small and medium sized companies have produced about 85 per cent of the new jobs in this country in the past few years. They are an important segment of the economy.
I would warn the hon. member from Vancouver to be careful in his simplicity about reducing taxation. I know that taxation is sensitive and one can take taxation too far with respect to business. In many cases we have taken it too far. When he uses the Hong Kong example, I can come back with the example of the United States of America which has an unemployment rate of about 6.5 per cent. It sounds good at the surface but there is an enormous price to pay for that because of their inability to distribute wealth in any reasonable way. The United States of America has an enormous problem when it comes to poverty. Poverty turns into disaster. There is the matter of crime in the United States. It is directly attributable to poverty.
When the hon. member talks about taxation he should also be very mindful about distribution of wealth or does he not care about the distribution of wealth? Would he just leave it to the marketplace and all of its inherent injustices?