Madam Speaker, I was a bit worried about my Liberal colleague there for a moment. It sounded like he was in an auction about the debts they were running: $150 billion, $160 billion. I was getting terrified because the Liberals are kind of doing that right now. It will be a $10-billion deficit, or maybe $20 billion, $30 billion. It is like the worst kind of auction, after 10 years of these guys running up massive debts that have left us with a weak economy.
My question is for my friend. Liberals seem somehow shocked in the House when we are asking them about their promise to cut the small business tax. They somehow feel offended that we would dare hold this up. They have all of these other answers, so the question will again be simple for them.
Budgets are always about making choices. It is still about making choices. The Liberals chose to keep a $750-million tax loophole for stock options for CEOs. I do not know about the rest of the middle class in Canada, but most of my friends who are middle class do not get paid in stock options.
The Liberals chose to keep that stock option loophole for CEOs, yet said to small businesses that they choose not to give them the $2 billion over four years that they promised them. They thought that there were better uses for the money, whatever that happens to be.
It is a simple question. Did the Liberals sit down and say that this is not worth it, that this is a bad idea? Was cutting the small business tax rate in Canada a bad idea and they chose not to do it, yes or no?