Finance committee  Thank you, and good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and committee members. My name is Michael Conway, and I'm pleased to present, on behalf of Financial Executives International Canada, our views on your study of the structure of Canada's federal revenue-raising system. FEI Canada is

Finance committee  In our brief we talked about simplicity and the reduction of the non-proliferation of credits. We would prefer to get back to basics, simplify it, and then direct the incentives more specifically. So the answer would be--

Finance committee  Our brief indicated we did not advocate a drop in the GST. That is clear.

Finance committee  We are calling for a reduction in corporate taxes. As Mr. Heady pointed out, we believe it stimulates direct foreign investment into the country, and it's good to stimulate the economy. We used the Ireland example, where they significantly reduced taxes and had very strong growth

Finance committee  From a corporate perspective, we want to stimulate investment in the country. The market is international, and it is competitive. You are right in saying that many countries are cutting their rates, but if we do not cut ours in response, we will not be competitive, and there wil

Finance committee  One-third of the program spending relates to old age security and health care, something we know is going to increase as the population ages. That should provide us with the incentive to find the money through various means, and one of the ways we were suggesting was to pay down

Finance committee  We have indicated it is appropriate to control spending, but that spending on infrastructure is the way to go. If we are going to look at what we're spending our money on, infrastructure spending is a good direction.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  In our brief, we urged the government to implement mechanisms that support Canadian economic value creators. Canada needs the champions that some of the SR and ED credits, the R and D credits, which is a good system, are promoting. We look at Research in Motion as a prime example

Finance committee  We're saying, as we're looking at where we're spending money, spending on infrastructure that makes Canada more competitive is a good thing. Then when we start thinking about infrastructure, we think about R and D, we think about training, which is one of the reasons we've put fo

Finance committee  I don't want to get too much into details, but there's actually an interpretation bulletin that specifies that certain types of training are deductible in the current year, and other types, interestingly enough, that are longer term are considered to be of a capital nature, and t

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  One of the themes running through our entire submission was simplification, which is why we called for the harmonized sales tax, the group tax reporting, and a review of the tax system. The tax act is huge now, and it's got to be looked at. In terms of environment, I think a stu

Finance committee  It's interesting that Mr. Dykstra brought up the issue of the affordability of consumption taxes to lower-income earners. Just as you indicated that possibly we shouldn't confuse one objective with another, we have proposed that the GST should not be reduced further. If there i

Finance committee  We use the term “patchwork quilt of complex regulation”. The tax act has doubled, or tripled, or quadrupled in size since I took my CA. I'm glad I don't have to do it again. Our first recommendation, which is actually the last recommendation in our study, is to move to a compre