Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my hon. friend because it allows me to clarify something.
In my speech I noted the record of TPC grants in Canada. Pratt & Whitney Canada received $154 million from TPC on June 22, 1999. On August 24, 1999, less than two months later, it issued a press release announcing cuts to 300 jobs in Canada and a further 400 jobs at unspecified locations worldwide. TPC grants, which are corporate welfare, do not protect jobs in the long term. That is a fact. Let us look at de Havilland. In 1997 TPC invested $57 million in de Havilland. It then decided to lay off 450 employees in Downsview, Ontario.
If I believed corporate welfare was the way to protect jobs I would be the first to stand in here and ask for it. However it is not. The way to protect jobs in the long term is through tax reductions and being competitive on a global scale. That is why we in the Canadian Alliance continue to call for tax reductions. As long as taxes are too high in Canada, which under the present Liberal government they will be for a long time, we will continue to call for corporate rate reductions, the removal of nuisance taxes, and personal income tax reductions. We will specifically call for the elimination of the capital tax which discourages investment and in the long run causes plant closings in areas like Boisbriand, Quebec.
Our policy of low taxes and low public debt is the way to go if we want to have long term jobs in Canada.