Mr. Speaker, I will use the words of my hon. colleague, “middle of the pack”.
Ireland has a corporate tax rate of 13% and cannot attract businesses to the country. It is having a very difficult time. We know that Ireland is in difficulty right now, we know that for a fact. It has a much lower tax rate than any of the other countries I used in comparison, but it is still unable to attract business because businesses are attracted to countries not only for their tax rates but also for their skills, manpower and other favourable environments, all of which we must have.
I could turn the question back to my hon. colleague. On things like SR&ED, if we want to drive innovation in our country, we really need to address some of the issues with regard to the scientific research and experimental development grants. I am going to talk about productivity when talking about having to drive innovation. We have a widening productivity gap, which lowering tax rates is not necessarily going to address; it is a more fulsome issue. If she had read Red Wilson's report on competitiveness, she would have seen that he talked about our needing to take a more holistic approach to drive productivity.
What we need to do now is to press the pause button on these tax cuts and look at other ways to generate a better environment for businesses, which could be through SR&ED or an accelerated capital cost allowance. These are some other ways we could help businesses in our country. We also have to remember that small business actually drives the numbers of job creators in this country, not necessarily large business.