Mr. Speaker, we had some concern about that very point. I take it I am no longer splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Etobicoke North. I know we are all disappointed that we will not be hearing from the member because he speaks quite eloquently about these issues and he is quite knowledgeable. Were the member for Etobicoke North able to speak, I know he would be speaking about things such as standard of living which has, over the past number of years, increased somewhat dramatically in this country.
In fact, the Minister of Finance is currently speaking with his colleagues in the G-7. He is in a fairly enviable position because he is the only finance minister at the table who is in a surplus position. These are all of the major industrial nations of the world and Canada is the only one that will be there with a surplus position, that will have a debt to GDP ratio that is declining, that will have a projection forward, as this budget does, of five years of anticipated surpluses. Therefore the finance minister is in something of an enviable position vis-à-vis his colleagues.
He is also in an enviable position vis-à-vis Canada's productivity growth. This is something that we are very concerned about and this budget addressed over the course of both the budget implementation bill and the budget speech itself.
In the G-7 we are second only to the United States in terms of productivity growth. We would like to be closer to the United States in terms of our own productivity growth but in the industrial world Canada is second highest in productivity growth. With productivity growth goes a country's standard of living.
We are therefore very conscious of the issues arising from a competitive business environment, to wit the introduction of a general reduction in corporate taxes and the elimination of the surtax over time. The reason for the original implementation of those provisions into the budget was to maintain something of a competitive tax advantage, vis-à-vis the competition that Canadian industry faces in the United States.
Capital is highly mobile. It can move virtually in an electronic instant from one country to another. if we do not have a competitive environment for our corporations, our businesses, our exports and our imports we will not do well in terms of improvements in the standard of living of the nation and in terms of productivity.
Those were the original reasons that these budget implementation parts were put into the bill. We wanted to have a competitive tax environment. Since 1997, 25 out of 30 OECD countries have implemented statutory corporate tax relief because they are all competing for the same capital, the same increases in the standard of living.
The Government of Canada is focused on improving the competitiveness of Canada's business taxes, the depreciation schedules and various other grants and programs that can be done in order to stimulate industry in this country. That was initially started once we moved into the surplus position in 1997. We implemented shortly thereafter a five year tax reduction plan totalling something in the order of $100 billion, the corporate side of which reduced the general corporate tax rate from 28% to 21%. Were the budget implementation bill passed in its original form, that would in turn have gone from 21% down to 19%.
We are very concerned that we maintain a competitive tax advantage vis-à-vis the United States which is, of course, our main competition in business. We have that rate. We do have some time to maintain that rate but the schedule proposed by the president and congress will erode that advantage over time.
Last year the U.S. legislated a plan to reduce its corporate tax rate on manufacturing income by an equivalent of 3.15 percentage points by the year 2010. Had clauses 9, 10 and 11 of the budget implementation bill been supported by the party opposite, then we would have been able to match that corporate tax advantage.
To maintain Canada's corporate tax advantage, budget 2005 proposed a two percentage point reduction in the general corporate rate from 21% down to 19%, and an elimination of the corporate surtax in 2008. These corporate tax reductions would allow Canada to maintain its corporate tax advantage.
When the budget was introduced in February of this year, that was the budget plan. When Bill C-43 was introduced, that was the budget plan. Regrettably, the Conservative Party withdrew its support of the budget and another configuration had to be entered into. It is with some regret that we introduced Motions Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in order to reflect that new configuration. It is, however, the intention that once the budget implementation bill does pass that these tax measures will be restored on a separate legislated track.