Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise here today to talk about this motion, which I will read in a moment. It is an important motion because of the economic situation we are facing.
In the retail sector we see a current crisis with the closure of Target, the most recent casualty in the Canadian economy, and others are also talking of liquidating themselves. It is important to mention that Target was allowed into the country under the Investment Canada Act and then bought out Zellers. Not only have we just lost Target, another retail chain, with vacant spaces appearing in shopping centres where they were located, but the reality is that Target supplanted and took over from the last Canadian-owned retail store, Zellers. When Target took over at that time, I remember the distress and concern of the workers at Zellers, because they had to immediately take a pay cut of a couple of dollars or lose their chance to stay on at Target.
I was on the picket line with some of those employees who had been at Zellers, a Canadian employer company, for over 20 years when this American superhero giant came in to compete.
We knew the terms and conditions because we were living on the border in Windsor, Ontario. We would often go over to Target or some place like that. We would see the signs for a minimum wage of $3 an hour or something like that. We knew the type of attitude that was going to come into the Canadian market.
We have not only just lost this retail component today; we have also lost a Canadian component that had a livable wage at that time for those workers. The government did nothing for those workers at that time. It could have and it should have, but it did not. It allowed them to be crushed.
Today we stand here to talk about a motion made by the member for Parkdale—High Park, which moves:
That the House call on the government to take immediate action to build a balanced economy, support the middle class and encourage manufacturing and small business job creation by: (a) extending the accelerated capital cost allowance by two years; (b) reducing the small business income tax rate from 11% to 10% immediately, and then to 9% when finances permit; and (c) introducing an Innovation Tax Credit to support investment in machinery, equipment and property to further innovation and increase productivity.
I am going to talk about the initiatives that we have proposed as reasonable ways to move our economy forward and make sure that middle-class Canadians can emerge as a stronger force in this country. We have seen that whittled down over the years through a series of attacks.
There has not been proper support for certain industries, especially when other foreign countries have used intervention to steal some of our jobs. We have certainly seen that in the auto sector.
We have also allowed middle-class Canadians to be attacked by gouging, whether it is at the pumps or through fees charged for credit cards, banking, or cellphones. These are a whole series of important things that are necessary to function in a modern society that have been put on the backs of consumers and families alike.
What that has done is put a real squeeze on disposable income. Just today we saw more reports about consumer debt. It is a real issue, and the investment that is necessary is available to the government and to those individuals who could help.
The first item in the motion is about extending the accelerated capital cost allowance by two years. I have a little history with this.
I was reminded by my friend from Edmonton—Leduc about the work that we did in the industry committee before this place became so hyperpartisan that we could not agree on anything. There was a working relationship in the industry committee at that time.
Ironically, the work was done by several parties. We came up with a series of recommendations that we could all agree upon for the most part, and we worked on the ones we could not agree on to make sure that they would be at least palatable to all of us. One significant recommendation was the capital cost reduction allowance so that the manufacturing and resource sectors could write off of equipment at a quicker pace to encourage investment.
That is important because Canada has become, for the most part, a branch plant economic system. The head offices have often moved outside of this country. Very few have moved back here and very few have stayed. At the time when we produced that report and made recommendations that were tabled in the House of Commons, there were Canadian giants that were still in the field, such as Nortel. Gone.