Mr. Speaker, I truly hope the constituents of the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands are listening to this debate. There are many small businesses in the creative field such as artists and other small businesses. If they could hear what he just said in this House. If someone goes to a bank with a good business case, they can get a loan. I do not know where he has been. He is just not listening or he has not been out there talking to people.
Talk about the rhetoric of Reformers. It looks like they get their speeches by cutting and pasting. They talk about subsidies to business. What we did as a government is to say that big business and medium size businesses do not need us as much. Frankly, we cannot afford it any more.
We took a major effort to reduce or almost eliminate grants or loans to big and medium size businesses. In fact, Industry Canada was reduced by 40% or 50%. All the granting and loan programs when it came to medium and big business were essentially cut out.
What we are talking about here is small business, the people who need us, those who need our help. We should be supporting financing for small business.
The member opposite also talks about payroll taxes as he calls them. Our government has reduced employment insurance premiums while the previous government increased them significantly. I think this is an incredible program that helps small business with access to capital. I think everybody in this House should support it.