Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I have a question for him about tax rates.
The NDP speaks often about corporate or business tax rates. In my mind there are two issues: the question of business tax rates and the question of the tax rates we charge to higher-income individuals. Those two issues are often conflated by the discourse we hear from the NDP.
There is certainly logic on the personal income tax side, focusing our tax reductions on lower-income individuals, and that is what we did while were in government. We raised the base personal exemption, we lowered the lowest marginal rate and we lowered the GST, which is the one tax that all Canadians pay. At the same time, we lowered the business tax. We saw when we lowered business taxes that it made it easier to do business in Canada and that it led to an increased amount of tax revenue coming in through business taxes. It also led to job creation here in Canada, which benefited those who were unemployed.
Would my colleague reconsider his approach a little in recognizing that if we want to raise taxes on those who are well off, there are maybe arguments for what we do on the income tax side? Certainly on the business tax side, we have seen that lowering business taxes actually increases tax revenue for government and it also helps the unemployed get into the workforce.