Mr. Speaker, two days ago the Minister of Finance stood in the House and said that he would continue the Liberal tradition of giving deep corporate tax cuts to the most profitable big corporations like the banks that have just made somewhere near $19 billion worth of profit last year.
In fact, the Liberals since 2000 have reduced the corporate tax rate from 28% to 21%. One would think that would help the manufacturing industry, but no, it did not. Why? Because the manufacturing industry already has a 21% rate. It did not help small businesses whatsoever. Why? Because small businesses only pay a 12% corporate tax rate anyway.
Therefore, these huge corporate tax cuts during those years have actually had no impact on the manufacturing industry or small businesses which is one of the reasons why we see the manufacturing industry suffering right now. Over those 10 years we have seen close to $60 billion worth of tax revenue that this country has forgone and that is really shameful.
Since the Liberal economic policy is so similar to that of the Conservatives, is that why every member of the Liberal Party chose to not vote against the throne speech yesterday?