Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her speech.
In that we are talking about enterprise and innovation I would like to quote one of Canada's greatest entrepreneurs. Frank Stronach once said that the government cannot give us anything without first taking it away. It is impossible for government to create economic activity on the one hand without taking away economic activity on the other.
For these dollars to flow into the regional development programs that the hon. member supports, those dollars first have to be taken out of someone's pocket. In so doing, it kills jobs just as much as it creates them.
It is impossible to deny. When more tax burden is forced on small businesses by taxing them to pay for these kinds of programs, the government is in fact killing jobs at that small business.
If the government were really interested in creating economic wealth, if it were really interested in promoting innovation and technology, why would the government not eliminate the capital gains tax and let investors invest their dollars in the way they want to create real wealth in the economy? Why not make it easier for entrepreneurs to raise capital and therefore create jobs?
Instead the government raises roughly $4 billion a year off the backs of entrepreneurs, kills investment, shuts people out of the marketplace, makes it more difficult for small firms that are issuing IPOs to raise capital, just so it can take that $4 billion and have 100% control over the way in which it is spent. That is what we are really talking about here today.
The question is why would the government do such a thing? The answer is the government wants to have control over where money flows. The government wants to reward its friends. The government wants to pick winners over losers, punish success, reward failure and waste a lot of tax dollars at the same time.
Why not just cut the capital gains tax so that investors can create real wealth with their own money instead of having government intervene on their behalf?