Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister of Finance for his informative speech, but I have a few questions for him. It is directed by conversations we have had with the CFIB and the president of the CFIB, Dan Kelly. I want to read a couple of his quotes. I know that prior to politics, the minister had dealings with investments, so I just want to ask him these things. I am going to read two quotes today. If the minister could respond, that would be fantastic.
The first quote is this:
It is tremendously disappointing to see that finance ministers are putting Canadian wages, hours and jobs in jeopardy and willfully moving to make an already shaky economy even worse. Despite all the talk, it appears that jobs and the economy are not particularly high priorities for the governments that have signed off on this deal.
That was from the president of the CFIB, Dan Kelly.
Second, he noted:
Two thirds of small firms say they will have to freeze or cut salaries and over a third say they will have to reduce hours or jobs in their business in response to a CPP/QPP hike.
I wonder if the Minister of Finance could speak about these things, because I know that the CFIB was not at the table when the government was consulting small businesses, and small businesses are part of the middle class. In my community of Elgin—Middlesex—London, those small businesses are owned by the middle class.