Mr. Speaker, I have to disagree with my colleague from the New Democratic Party on one issue, what he calls corporate tax giveaways. I want to bring to his attention two parts of this budget that fly in the face of that assertion.
The first is that the government in this budget has called for the elimination of the accelerated capital cost allowance for the oil sands, something which the leader of the New Democrats has long called for and something which this budget delivers on. Many economists in Canada have long argued that capital cost allowances should reflect real life usage and not provide a subsidy to businesses that are economically viable and successful. This is a case of an industry that will make close to $100 billion in new capital investments in the oil sands in the coming years and the reason we as a government decided to eliminate the accelerated capital cost allowance for this sector. That is one item in the budget that counters the member's arguments that it is full of corporate tax giveaways.
The second element in the budget that flies in the face of the member's assertion is our decision to eliminate the tax deductibility of interest on loans that are borrowed by Canadian corporations to invest in operations abroad, a tax loophole that many Canadian corporations use to shelter domestically produced income from domestic corporate taxes in tax havens abroad. Our government in this budget, under the leadership of the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, has decided to eliminate the tax deductibility of interest on loans taken to invest in those operations and those tax loopholes abroad.
Those are two things that the budget does that completely contradict the member's assertion that the budget is full of “corporate tax giveaways”.