Mr. Speaker, the member for Peace River—Westlock is also the deputy shadow minister of industry, science, and economic development. He does fantastic work. He also participates a lot with the work we do in our committee.
Right now we see a lot of the innovation sector look south. We see a lot of red tape being removed in the United States and other countries, a few of which I mentioned in my speech. They are looking for places where the government is out of the way and not controlling everything, like the Liberal government has in the latest IP strategy.
The solution to a lot of this is to encourage the government to not put in place additional taxes and red tape on small businesses. I spoke with a small business in my community, which employees 15 people. It told me that it had been taxed so much at the federal, provincial, and municipal level that it was having a tough time keeping its employees. It said that it would have to lay off two people, and the owner and general manager would also have to take less salary. The effect of those two people being laid off then trickles down. These two people now will have a difficult time meeting their mortgage. They will probably not own that second car. They probably will not be eating out at the local restaurants and shopping at the other local businesses. These two people will now have to reassess their lives. It points directly to the tax burden that has been put on the business from three levels of government.
To see these innovators and small businesses continually be taxed and stressed to the maximum is certainly something we do not support on this side of the House. When the other side is coming up with strategies such as this, when it is coming up with the proponents focused on the Trans Mountain expansion project, which I also spoke about in my speech, I appeal to the members to ensure they are helping innovators and small businesses, not standing in their way.