Mr. Speaker, I notice my colleague spent much of his time giving rather lofty platitudes and some very nice history about his family's service in the armed forces, et cetera, but he was soft on details when it comes to one of the major concerns that we have about the budget, which is the jobs strategy the government has put forward.
I would like to correct one thing, remind him of another and then ask his opinion on a third.
First, if the Conservatives really wanted to do something for small business, they could have done something tangible in the budget. When the NDP took power in Manitoba in 1999, the tax-and-grab Conservatives were charging small businesses 11% in corporate tax. Subsequently, the NDP reduced that every year by 1% per year. I do not have to tell the Manitoba MPs in the House today—there are five of us here at least—that the small business tax in the socialist paradise of Manitoba is now zero.
If the Conservatives are serious about making a gesture to small business in the budget, it would not be to charge them more for labour market training, as they are contemplating, but to give them a real, tangible, take-home tax break—