Mr. Speaker, I tried to make the point that we should take our hats off to small business and we should give them the assistance that we can. We should not tax small business even more, which of course is always the NDP philosophy, to bury them under a mountain of taxation.
I pointed out in my speech that because the government has a full cost recovery policy on this program, it is the intent of the government that it be totally financed by the successful small business people who pay the 2% application fees and the 1.25% annual administration fee. From those moneys, the government is going to pay the banks back for the bad debts the banks make.
Remember, it was not the successful small business man who made the decision to give it to the unsuccessful small business man. It was the bank's decision and the small business man has been asked to underwrite that, hence a tax on the successful small business.
The member said he wanted to support this bill. If he wants to support this kind of additional taxation on successful job creating businesses, and I take my hat off to businesses, but I have to really wonder about the policy of the NDP if its members cannot see that.
Surely, if we want business to be successful then we get taxation off their backs, we get rules and regulations off their backs. We give them every encouragement to go out there and do what they know, do what they can do best. That is to create profits, which pays taxes, to create jobs, which is what this country needs, and that improves our prosperity for everybody. Surely the NDP could understand that.