Mr. Speaker, welcome back, and welcome to everyone in this place.
I want to thank the member opposite for his speech today. Obviously he spent some time discussing small business with his constituents and hopefully with others, which is a good thing. What I question is whether he has studied the bill. This is about administrative compliance: the time, the planning, the effort it takes to demonstrate compliance with government regulation. There is nothing in the one-for-one rule or in this piece of legislation that would compromise health, safety, or the environment for Canadians.
It is a curious pattern. The NDP continue to advocate that it is behind small business, but when we brought in temporary hiring credits for small business, its members opposed them. When we brought forward lifetime capital gains, which the member spoke about, we increased it, and they opposed it. When we indexed it last year, they opposed it.
As to introducing measures such as a mandatory minimum wage, federally, of $15, I wonder if the member has consulted with his constituents and small business across this country, because it sounds to me like the bromides he tries to pass in this place and onto others seem to be far divorced from reality.