We see the Liberals running around seeking praise for such a great job they say that they have done but, to use the famous phrase of the finance minister, the fact is what they have really been doing is pulling on their magic tax lever to fill their coffers while Canadian businesses and Canadian workers have had less and less to spend, less and less to invest and less and less to save.

They took little or no notice of the pain they were inflicting on Canadian families, Canadian workers and Canadian businesses over these last three and a half years as they grabbed this tax lever and over and over again pulled it and pulled billions of dollars more into their coffers.

Since 2006, and including measures in the Economic Action Plan 2013, our government has closed over 75 tax loopholes, and I will highlight a few of these measures found in Bill C-4: eliminating the unintended tax benefits from the leveraged insured annuities and leveraged life insurance arrangements, commonly known as 10/8 arrangements; extending the application of Canada's thin capitalization rules and ensuring that the loss pools of trusts cannot be inappropriately traded among arm's- length persons; strengthening the ability of the Canada Revenue Agency to crack down on tax cheats and combat international tax evasion by extending th ...[+++]e normal reassessment period by three years for taxpayers who have failed to report income from a specified foreign property on their annual income tax return; streamlining the process for CRA to obtain information concerning unnamed persons from third parties, such as banks; and requiring certain financial intermediaries, including banks, to report to the CRA clients' international electronic fund transfers of $10,000 or more.

They aim to foster private investment in RD (notably through increased leverage via public funding, improved framework conditions and fiscal incentives) and to protect and promote public funding of RD despite the crisis, in line with the principle of growth-friendly fiscal consolidation.

Senate Report No 413 (44) states that ‘the . measure is designed specifically to encourage heavy investment through highly favourable tax leveraging’.

While the Minister of Finance stands and crows about balancing the budget which is not true, and I will talk about that next, for any increase in revenue he has just pulled his magic tax lever and the money has just flowed out of the pockets of working Canadians.