Mr. Speaker, experts say that corporate tax reductions have not had the desired effect the government thinks they should have. For example, Statistics Canada indicates that business spending on machinery and equipment has declined as a share of GDP and total business investment spending has declined as a percentage of corporate cashflow. This is the opposite of what the government is trying to achieve.
IT use by Canadian business is only half of that of the United States. That comment is attributed to Kevin Lynch, former clerk of the Privy Council. In 2007, Canadian business spending on R and D, about 1% of GDP, ranked 14th in the OECD, well below the average 1.6% and only one-third of that of Sweden, Finland and Korea. In addition, productivity growth was actually worse in the last decade.
There is a lot of evidence out there that the government's agenda of reducing corporate taxes is not having the desired effect. Why do the Conservatives insist upon doing things that do not work?