“Payroll taxes hurt jobs because they make it more expensive to hire people, especially the young. Raising employment insurance costs will make this worse. I want the government to promise it will not raise payroll taxes.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to address the House on the subject of the unemployment crisis, and in particular to speak about the implications of EI premiums for employment. It is my view and the view of our party in general that payroll taxes are among the worst kinds of taxes. This is because payroll taxes create a greater cost and a disincentive around employment. While all kinds of taxes can have negative effects in terms of economic activity, payroll taxes are among the worst because they are not based on the profits that a company is earning or based on the overall income of an individual. They are targeted at employment specifically. When we have payroll taxes, the cost falls most heavily on those who are employing others. Let us imagine that we have two businesses of equal size and equal profit, but one is employing twice as many people as the other. The company that is employing more people will be on the hook for more payroll taxes. One of the key action items we are hearing from small businesses that will help them be part of the solution to youth unemployment is simply to reduce the cost of hiring. There was a great report done recently by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. It looked at how we can address youth unemployment and looked at some of the disconnect that has existed between employers and young people. The report highlighted that many small businesses say that a lot of the programs that are designed to promote, through programmatic or subsidy means, the hiring of youth can be complicated and difficult to use. They would like to see simple measures aimed at reducing the costs of hiring young people. One way the government can act to reduce the costs of hiring young people and reduce the costs of hiring in general is to address the relatively high payroll taxes that businesses and individuals have to pay on top of employment. In that context, therefore, Conservatives have been calling on the government to commit to not increasing EI premiums. Unfortunately, what we saw in the last budget, which goes to the question that I am following up on, were proposals for changes to EI that were associated with increases to premiums going forward. We pointed out and will continue to point out that increasing EI premiums creates the conditions in which it becomes even harder to employ young people and people of all ages. We will continue to highlight the negative impacts of payroll tax increases and encourage the government not to pursue policies that increase payroll taxes. I am here tonight to ask the parliamentary secretary again if the government is prepared to commit to not increasing payroll taxes and to addressing the implications of payroll taxes for unemployment.”

“I want the government to actually answer my question. I asked why they are raising taxes on jobs to pay for their budget. Instead, they sent someone from health to read an unrelated statement.”

“Mr. Speaker, we are seeing tonight the government’s lack of respect for Parliament. What we are supposed to be having is Adjournment Proceedings, where the government follows up on a question that was asked in question period. My question was very specifically about payroll taxes. I asked, “Why are the Liberals paying for their costly credit card budget with further tax increases on jobs?” Instead, the government sent the parliamentary secretary for health, which is not related to finance or employment, which was the topic of the question asked, and the parliamentary secretary for health, a different file, read out a written response that had absolutely nothing to do with the question. The question was not a request for a generic statement of the government’s position on the budget. It was specifically about payroll taxes and why the government was paying for its proposed measures with further planned increases to the tax on jobs. That was the question. This is what is supposed to happen in this segment of parliamentary life. Can we get an actual answer?”