Mr. Speaker, I should get my red hat back, the one I used to wear on the football field. I could use it.
In answer to the question from my colleague, if I were a businessman again and appeared before the committee as a witness to give advice, I would say first that payroll taxes are far too high. That also applies to unemployment insurance, especially now that I hear there will be a $5 billion to $10 billion surplus. Why not give me, a businessman, a tax break so I can hire more people and my employees would be happier and the corporation would be happier? Do not forget, corporations pay 1.4 times what the employee earns. Why punish the payer? Why not make it the same?
Payroll tax is one area. The high levels of taxation are another area. Corporate and business taxes are 28.84 per cent. It is confusing and complicated. Different kinds of businesses have different rates and get different discounts. There is always a continual hassle with the government, with Revenue Canada.
They send out inexperienced auditors who apply the letter of the law, tie up your office and have to justify the number of days they are there. They are looking for ways to squeeze money out of honest, above board businesses. They let the ones who are dealing in the underground go. Now they are going after them.
Why not simplify the tax system, clean up the tax mess, all these rules? It would be another way of creating more employment. Another way is to get rid of the minimum wage. It is a job killer. If qualified people are hired, one could expand and train. Businesses that hire people at a minimum wage and hourly rates are held for ransom after those people are trained, the rate goes up and production and performance go down. Without the minimum wage more people would be willing to stay on the job and fewer people would be playing the game with unemployment insurance.
Those are three reasons and I could probably think of more, but I do not want to deny the opportunity to any member of the government to ask a question.