Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member that resources are important to communities across Canada but I disagree about how we are developing them.
Before 2000, Canada made progress in moving away from being hewers of wood, drawers of water, and miners and exporters of raw bitumen and crude oil. Yesterday's Globe and Mail had some interesting statistics about how the clock has been turned back and how the economy is reverting back to a raw materials industry. In 1999, manufactured goods constituted almost 60% of all exports out of Canada. In 2011, unprocessed and semi-processed resources constituted two-thirds of total exports, the highest in decades.
Do we not really need a new, or maybe it is renewed, industrial strategy which would constitute more than tax cuts to banks and big oil companies, hasty so-called free trade agreements and irresponsible resource exploitation?