Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his most excellent question.
The question of what would happen with Alberta would ultimately be answered by Alberta. The whole amendment is contingent upon the province and the people of Alberta agreeing with what the federal government is proposing. It would ultimately be up to the people of Alberta to make that decision.
The people of Alberta believe that taxes are a cancer on job creation, to use a phrase the finance minister has used in the past. I would argue that high taxes are ultimately the reason for the country failing to meet its job creation targets. It is the reason the Liberal government has failed to make any real progress on the issue of jobs, jobs, jobs.
I spoke a minute ago about the Liberal promise on the GST. One of the biggest promises the government has broken for reasons that are worthy of our attention is that it would create jobs, jobs, jobs. There is such a tremendous tax burden on Canadians overall and particularly in payroll taxes that job creators, the small business people who create about 85 per cent of all jobs, simply do not have the incentive to create jobs. The federal government is proposing to increase premiums on CPP by 73 per cent, which will make it even more difficult for job creators to create jobs.
In Alberta we have very low taxes relative to the rest of the country. The people in my province have a tremendous incentive to make money. When they do that they know they will be able to keep most of it. That gives them the incentive to keep working harder and harder and harder.
In high tax jurisdictions, which I would regard Canada as a whole as being-and certainly relative to our G-7 neighbours that is true-it is difficult for people to get excited about creating jobs, knowing they will have to pay more and more in taxes the more money they make.
I hope that adequately answers my friend's question.