Madam Speaker, my friend's comments are a bit divorced from reality. One of the things that was proposed to the government in terms of reducing the cost to individuals was to reduce the taxes at the pump. As I said before, we had a choice of whether to do that. We chose not to do it because it would have given a direct financial tax benefit to the gas companies and that was not fair.
What have we done? We have centred the benefits to the individual, to the Canadian public and to the user, which is what our objective was, to help the public by putting money in their pockets.
On the productivity issue, the member may not be aware that our government has reduced taxes to individuals by $100 billion. Is that the end? No, it is not the end because we are going to continue to approach the issue of productivity to ensure Canada, Canadians and Canadian companies can compete internationally.
The second point I want to make is on the issue of corporate tax cuts. Does the member balk at corporate tax cuts? Yes he does because the NDP is against it. Are we against corporate tax cuts? No, we want to ensure Canadian companies are on a competitive tax basis with other companies. If we did anything less, if we penalized Canadian companies by elevating the taxes to corporations, as the NDP would, what would we be doing? We would be hammering the Canadian economy, reducing employment, increasing unemployment and reducing money in the pockets of Canadians, and that is not acceptable.
We reduced corporate taxes so far from 28% to 21%. The individual tax cuts and the corporate tax cuts to keep our businesses competitive are just the start. Are we doing more? Yes, we are.
Does the member not approve of Canada, Canadians and the government making sure Canadian companies are on a level playing field and on a competitive tax basis based on a competitive tax base with their competitors internationally?