Mr. Speaker, the member made a great deal of reference to small businesses and how we should support them, and she referred to taxes and so forth.
Last fall the federal government came up with its so-called initiative, the small business job credit program, which in a bizarre way encouraged some small businesses to look at laying off staff.
On the other hand, the Liberal Party came up with the EI premium exemption, which was widely accepted outside of political circles as a program that would have generated tens of thousands of jobs for every region of the country. The NDP balked at the Liberal proposal back then, and we raised concerns with respect to what degree the New Democrats were committed to supporting small business.
This is a fairly small and relatively insignificant bill in terms of moving forward on dealing with regulations. However, from what I understand, the small business community has come out in support of the legislation.
My question for the member is this. When the small business community supports the legislation as a small step forward, why would the NDP not support that initiative?