Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my speech, on the Department of Finance website is a variety of tax relief that could been done, such as corporate relief, capital cost allowance, consumption taxes, personal income tax. The absolute worst one from a productivity and a prosperity standpoint is relief from a consumption tax. Therefore, I would rank a corporate tax cut of any kind, whether it is capital cost allowance or whatever, ahead of the GST as proposed in the budget.
The hon. member will be interested to know that the government's revenues from corporate income taxes in the last year went from about 10% of gross revenues up to about 14% of gross revenues. Part of that had to do with the fact that the previous government had reduced corporate income taxes from 28% to 21% and the November update had proposed a further reduction from 21% to 19%. In that respect, the current budget picks up on the November update. We also proposed a relief of capital tax.
I believe we need to have a competitive tax environment. I realize that does not accord with NDP philosophy, but then the NDP never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.