Madam Speaker, today, I would like to come back to the question I asked in the House on June 21 about small and medium-sized businesses. We know that businesses with fewer than 100 employees represent over 98% of Canadian businesses. I therefore asked the Parliamentary Secretary to explain what concrete action the Conservative government intended to take to support the businesses that create approximately 70% of jobs in Canada.
The Conservatives have a tendency to give tax breaks to businesses that do not need them—those that are making huge profits. A good number of SMEs in Canada are still being affected by the economic crisis, which is rooted in stock market speculation and commercial paper. The businesses affected do not have any more working capital.
It is true that, since then, the Conservatives gave small businesses a 1% tax break and increased the tax rate threshold from $300,000 to $500,000. This is a first step that we could have taken together—we agreed with this measure—before we asked the government to work together to take things one step further and support job creation and the development of our small businesses.
However, in three years, this government reduced the taxes of large corporations, which did not need help at all, by 2.5%, which is equivalent to almost $6 billion in tax cuts in the past three years alone. All these credits in exchange for what? Absolutely nothing. No guarantees of job creation. We in the NDP believe that tax cuts should not be given out blindly. What the government must do is to do more for small businesses, particularly those that create jobs. Public investment must be targeted and the effects must be measured. It is key.
The Parliamentary Secretary told me, unfortunately, that I did not vote in favour of a budget that supported small business. The problem is that the measure that I just described was buried in a mishmash of budget measures that we could not in good conscience accept.
We know today that it is not small businesses but the friends of the Conservatives that are reaping the benefits of the massive tax breaks. After rereading the previous budget, we saw that the Conservatives are supporting big oil companies operating in oil sands and mining developments. However, these companies are moving manufacturing jobs to Asia, among other things. In my riding, 600 employees of White Birch Paper are living in uncertainty because of this government's complacency.
The parliamentary secretary subscribes to laissez-faire economics. This shows in his strategy to support the family business model and in his full commitment to dismantle government structures and leave people, including entrepreneurs, to fend for themselves.
This government lost 72,000 jobs last month. Is he going to keep shirking his responsibilities as parliamentary secretary for much longer?