Mr. Speaker, since this is my first chance in the House to actually spend more than 60 seconds asking questions or doing S. O. 31s, I want to take the opportunity to thank my constituents for the opportunity to represent them again in Niagara West for the fifth straight time. I certainly want to thank all the volunteers who helped out and those who created donations, because we realize campaigns do not work unless we have the finances to make them happen.
I also want to indicate that I will be splitting my time with the member for Cariboo—Prince George.
My perspective in talking about the budget today will be around small business and confidence, as well as some other things.
I have a concern when I look at creating jobs. I realize that governments do not actually create jobs, but they create a set of circumstances that create a climate that gives businesses confidence to invest in the country.
In looking at some of the things that our government did in the last nine years, I will use the acronym TIRE to put in perspective all the things we did to try to give the economy confidence and give Canada a great reputation on the world stage as a place to invest. That has been borne out by a number of articles. As a matter of fact, in January, Forbes rated Canada as the number one country in the G20 to do business in.
Let us think about that. Considering what went on over the last number of years and the great economic meltdown around the world in 2008, Forbes Magazine is saying In 2016 that Canada is number one in the G20 as a place to do business. That is because of all the hard work our government did over the last 10 years.
Here is why I use the acronym TIRE.
The “T” in TIRE is because we reduced corporate taxes. One of the things I will talk about is not dealing with the small business tax reduction, which I think is important. There were also the trade deals that we fostered with over 51 countries, including the TPP, which is the most recent one. We can look at how we lowered taxes for corporations, which made us one of the lowest-taxing jurisdictions in the G7. When global companies are deciding where they are going to invest money, they take a lot of things into consideration, and that is certainly one of them.
The “I” in TIRE is with regard to infrastructure, investments, and immigration reforms. We did a number of things around infrastructure. The new government is committed to infrastructure as well, which I think is great, because these are important things, but our previous government had unprecedented investments in infrastructure around this country and certainly in my region of Niagara as well. We were able to accomplish a number of things over a short period of time that have made Niagara a much better place to be. Not only were there a number of infrastructure projects there, but work was also done at the border, which enhanced transportation and a number of different things.
The “R” in TIRE is for research and development and red tape reduction. I had the opportunity to sit on a red tape reduction round table, and one of the things we heard was that red tape continues to be an issue for businesses in terms of their confidence when they have to deal with a bunch of red tape issues in one country versus another. It is an important issue. It is something that I hope the new government will continue to pursue, because, quite frankly, we can look at red tape once and have a commission to deal with it, but one of the laws of government or bureaucracy is that red tape will always continue to creep back in. We need to be diligent on this issue, and the current government needs to be committed to pursuing it.
Last, the “E” in TIRE is for entrepreneurship and the economy. As I mentioned previously, Forbes said that the best place to invest within the G20 is Canada, and I think we need to focus on entrepreneurship and small business. One of my concerns is reflected in some of the commitments made earlier by the current government, which is that business needs to have the confidence to know that if they invest money and move forward with something, the rules are not going to change and they can count on the rules of engagement as they move forward. One of the things we need to continue to do in this country is nurture small business and entrepreneurs.
One of the things our previous government did was to set aside $400 million for a venture capital fund, which is a good start, but I do not think it goes nearly far enough to address one of the most serious issues that small business has in this country, which is access to capital.
One of the reasons why we have hotspots in the U.S., whether it is Boston or Silicon Valley, is that there is a lot of money there. Yes, there is a lot of other factors. There are very smart people, but we have very smart people Canada. Access to capital continues to be one of the things that we will need to change in our country if we are to be more effective and have a chance to attract the businesses. Businesses need grow.
What sometimes happens is we get a great idea, we move forward and then we lack the ability to raise additional funds, so businesses invariably go next door because there is a lot of cash and big private markets and equity markets down there. These are some of the things we need to do to move forward.
In light of that, one of the promises the Liberals made, and they campaigned on it before the election, was that they would continue to lower the small business tax. This is one of the underlying factors in confidence, where small businesses could decide, or SMEs in general, how they invest and how they grow. If things do not line up that make it easier for them to do these things, then they will either sit on their funds or they will have a lot of other opportunities.
A number of manufacturers in my riding said that they could not believe the offers they were getting from the southern U.S. to move there. We are not just talking about taxes, but other things like energy costs, which are crazy. I realize that is a provincial issue, but all governments need to be concerned about this. It troubles me when I hear manufacturers in my riding say that the only reason they are here is because they are committed to the community, that they have roots there because they grew up there. It is great for the individuals who do that, but we are competing in a global economy for dollars, for talent and all these other things that go into it.
The Liberals promised to reduce small business taxes to 9%. Now they have said that they will not do that, and that concerns me. Once again that undermines the confidence of small businesses to make a difference in moving forward.
Another challenge was challenge dealing with the whole issue of EI. It is great that we look out for the most vulnerable, but we need to be careful over time. Businesses have to pay those premiums.
We have talked about CPP expansion. On the surface, that is a great idea. The challenge, though, is there is only one taxpayer, and that is individuals and businesses. They have to bear the brunt of that.
The challenge I have from that point of view is that we continue to place more burdens on small businesses. We continue to not look at all the other things that affect what is going on. Then what happens? There is a lack of confidence and businesses may decide not to invest additional money here. They may decide to move to other countries such as the United States. That is troubling because the previous government worked very hard over the last nine years to instill that confidence.
As we saw in various articles written about our country over the last number of years, whether it was Forbes or Fortune, all indicated that Canada was on the right track.
I also want to talk a bit about the comments of the parliamentary budget officer in trying to determine the budget. It is interesting that the opposition gave us a hard time when we were in government. It talked about how we did not listen to the PBO, that we were not open, transparent, and all those things. Now the parliamentary budget officer is saying that there is no openness or transparency. Once again, whether it is changing or playing down forecasts of long-term spending plans, how can the public understand what is really going on? The Liberals campaigned on the ability to be open and transparent.
Unfortunately, 10 minutes is not nearly enough time to talk about all the issues that one would talk about in the budget. However, Canada is facing a number of issues right now, whether it is dealing with pipelines and our resource sector, or a whole bunch of other things.
As a government, the Liberals have to create confidence for businesses. My concern is with the number of broken promises already. No one forced the Liberals to campaign on those promises and now they are reneging on some of them. Ultimately, that creates instability among SME's and businesses in general and causes them to question whether the Liberals will keep their word, As a result, those funds can actually flow to other places. Businesses, as we know, are the ones that create jobs.