Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak on Bill C-299.
Payroll taxes are one of the most significant impediments to job growth in Canada. By directly increasing the cost of labour, we ultimately decrease the demand for labour. That is one of the reasons Canada's unemployment rate continues to be stubbornly high.
This government has stubbornly clung to unrealistically high EI premiums in order to pay down the deficit. While we laud the efforts to pay down the deficit, effectively the government through its policies, by paying down the deficit, by raising and maintaining unnecessarily high taxes and at the same time cutting spending on programs like the EI, has put the government in the black and perversely Canadians in the red.