Madam Speaker, the finance minister said it clearly: “We believe there is nothing more ludicrous than a tax on hiring, but that is what payroll taxes are. They have grown dramatically over time. They affect lower wage earners much more than those at the high end. We took steps early in our mandate to reverse this trend in the case of UI premiums. We would hope to take further steps in the future”.
There we have it. Even the finance minister admits that payroll taxes kill jobs. Yet we now have the most hypocritical of positions before us in Bill C-2. The Liberals are not listening to themselves and they are certainly not listening to average Canadians.
Joe Italiano of the Department of Finance did a study in April 1995 on the employment implications for growth in CPP contributions. The CPP premium rate grew just seven-tenths of a percentage point between 1986 and 1993 but Italiano said it cost Canada 26,000 jobs.
The Liberals intend to increase the rate almost six times the rate increase Italiano used. Using Italiano's assumptions and projecting into the future we calculate that the phased-in increase of the higher CPP premiums will cost the Canadian economy 100,000 jobs.
In closing, I serve notion of my intention—