Finance committee  Thanks. Mr. Mintz, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. In response to the budget when it was introduced in March, you wrote an article in the Financial Post entitled “A budget of massive spending and not one dollar helping competitiveness.” The comment you made in that article was “What is more interesting is what is not in the budget.”

Finance committee  Thank you. Unfortunately, I hear those types of examples all too often. Those are the types of things that we obviously need to be looking at to try to address with regulatory compliance. Mr. Achen, regarding the CRA, you raised an issue that is also one I hear so frequently. You mentioned, and I actually hadn't heard this statistic before, that we have five times the number of agents per capita in the CRA than does the IRS.

Finance committee  Thanks. Actually, I want to touch on this issue of regulatory burdens and barriers as well. Ms. Coombs, if you have anything you want to add, you can certainly do that. Mr. Prouse, I also noticed that you had mentioned in your opening remarks about some regulatory concerns.

Finance committee  Mr. Achen, was there anything you wanted to add as well?

Finance committee  I'd like to come back to that in a minute, if I can. Mr. Prouse, I want to go back to you first. In terms of some of these regulatory burdens, in your opening remarks and just now in your response, you mentioned specifically the PMRA, and you also mentioned the CFIA. I hear at different times from constituents and others about some of the challenges, particularly in comparison to the U.S. and how products there can be treated much differently than they are here, which therefore makes us uncompetitive against our U.S. neighbours.

Finance committee  Ms. Coombs, did you have anything you wanted to add to your previous comments?

Finance committee  Yes. It says, “The conclusion is that incomes, by any measure or using either price index, fared better in the Harper years”. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about what average income growth for an average family has looked like under the current Prime Minister compared to the previous one.

Finance committee  So, generally, people are worse off.

Finance committee  Thanks, Mr. Chair. It was interesting to hear a member of the Trudeau Liberal government raise the idea of balanced budgets after, as was pointed out by colleague Mr. Lake, they broke their promise, of course, to have the budget balanced after running deficits and after, of course, being handed a balanced budget when they took office just a few years ago.

Finance committee  I appreciate that. We'll turn to another area that you have written on somewhat. You released a report in regard to incomes. I'll read a very brief excerpt from that one, because I think it says it pretty much completely.

Finance committee  Correct.

Finance committee  Let's return now to a couple of the other points. You obviously have already had a lot of opportunity, in your opening remarks and otherwise, to talk about your concerns around deficits and debt being piled on by this government. I certainly agree with your sentiments, but let's look at some of the other issues that were raised.

Finance committee  Mr. Ellis, in response to the federal budget, the president of your organization, Nancy Healey, put up a blog post saying: The budget failed to provide any meaningful solutions to the greatest concerns of business owners, including: A commitment to a comprehensive review of the taxation system to make it fair and less cumbersome for businesses.

Finance committee  Can you maybe speak to the effects that has for our economy?

Finance committee  Can I maybe interrupt you before you go to number two?