Mr. Speaker, in 2000, Canada's corporate income tax rate was 30% and the small business income tax rate was 13%. This advantaged small businesses vis-à-vis large corporations and promoted competition in the marketplace.
Large corporations have economies of scale. They have vast resources permitting them to deal with regulatory burdens and they can more efficiently manage their affairs. That 17% income-tax advantage helped the SME industry in our country.
Since that time, the government has cut the large-scale corporate tax rate down to 15% and kept the small business tax rate at 11%. That gap of 17% has now been narrowed to 4%, which makes it much more difficult for small businesses to operate in this country and compete against the large-scale companies.
Examples are Walmart and Costco competing against a small neighbourhood market, or Starbucks versus JJ Bean, or Chapters or Indigo versus, in my city of Vancouver, Duthie Books or Pulpfiction.
In Vancouver Kingsway, small business is really the engine of our economy. Does my colleague have any comment on the importance of giving small businesses an opportunity to keep their taxes low so they can create jobs and continue to be the engine of the Canadian economy?