Mr. Speaker, my colleague did a fairly good job of knocking down a straw man in some of his discussions about economic philosophy. Certainly, I have never heard anyone in this House defend the idea of the so-called trickle-down economics. Very often that is simply a caricature used by someone on the left.
It was the Conservative government that focused on cutting taxes for low- and middle-income people. We lowered the GST and the lowest marginal tax rate, introduced universal benefits, and, yes, we also lowered business taxes. The problem with the New Democrats is that they do not seem to understand how providing tax cuts to small and other kinds of businesses actually provides significant benefit, not only to consumers, employees, and the economy as a whole, but also to union pension funds and other important funds that invest in businesses and generate a return from their success.
I wonder if the member would be willing to at least reframe his arguments to contend in a more serious way with what people in other parties actually believe, rather than focusing on trying to construct this caricature and then knock that down.