Madam Speaker, it is a huge honour to rise to speak on Bill C-15. As a spokesperson for the NDP on small business, I am going to focus on the small business tax cuts that are not in this bill, that are going to be deleted, and the false promise by the Liberals.
As a former small business owner, as a former executive director of a chamber of commerce, and as a member of Parliament who represents a riding that has six chambers of commerce, I understand small business and know how important small business is to our communities and we support it. Small business people are the builders of our communities. They are the volunteers who sit on our boards, donate to charities and local organizations, and sit on councils in local governments. These are the people who coach our children and are innovators. They build the culture of our communities and are the backbone of our local economies.
In 2008, I was a small business owner. I remember when the largest recession hit since the 1930s. Sales plummeted and people had hard decisions to make in order to keep their businesses alive. Some businesses did not make it. It was a tough reality, and that it is the way it goes sometimes. However, what was really hard to justify were the massive bailouts for Canada's largest corporations and nothing for small business. Many small business owners saw this as completely unfair.
In the last election, small businesses felt like they were going to get a break and have a little more fairness. All three parties, including the Green Party, promised to lower taxes on small business to 9%. I have the page from the Liberal platform in my hand, in black and white, which says, “reduce the small business tax rate to 9 per cent”.