Mr. Speaker, the NDP has the luxury of being able to oppose everything at all times, at any place. It has no aspirations to actually form government. It is a great place to be.
On the other hand, he does make a rather valid point with respect to tax relief. Tax relief which is misdirected is basically wasted fiscal capacity. The government has in fact run us up to the precipice of a deficit and we may well enter into a deficit.
He is right with respect to manufacturing and well paying jobs. That is the basis of our economy and has been the basis of our economy for many years. We would layer on to that, particularly in Windsor, the thickening of the border. The Americans can seem to be so excessively concerned with terrorism that they actually wish to cut their own economic throats. In so doing, they are doing us no favours and making it very difficult for our people to compete as well.
He may also recollect that our leader put forward a very concrete and specific policy with respect to R and D and training, and the allocation of funds with respect to the difficulties that manufacturers are facing. He may also recall that when we were in government, not only did we run fiscal surpluses, not only did we do tax relief, but we also invested heavily in R and D, so that in fact we reversed the brain drain and became a brain gain.
Under this particular government, anybody with any sense, as the finance minister has said, is just going to leave the country in the first place or they are never going to invest here. Welcome to Conservative freakonomics.