Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take my colleague's question. I think that all 338 members of the House have a lot of contact with people. When we talk to people in our ridings, and small business owners, they are very concerned with the appetite of the government that likes to get more and more taxes to pay for its bad judgment when it is time to spend money. When the Liberals run deficit after deficit, it has to be paid for. Now the government is trying to pick up a quarter of a billion dollars from the pockets of small business owners. This is all wrong.
I was in Alma last week, and business owners told me that the government's attitude was jeopardizing their business, their expansion plans and their opportunities to create even more jobs and wealth in their communities. The government wants to increase their tax burden, which could also adversely affect every worker's potential raise.
We do not have to see this as just a business class opportunity. Every business owner has employees. When one wants to give good wages to their employees, one does not have to pay more taxes. What the Liberal government is doing is imposing new taxes, and it will hurt small business owners. More than that, it will hurt all Canadians who work in those businesses.