With the rise in our dollar, the strength of the oil industry is causing an imbalance. Since the Second World War, for sixty years, the Canadian manufacturing sector has grown and provided well-paid jobs. Now it is shrinking because it is caught in a vicious circle.
The Conservative government prides itself on providing tax cuts for business, but an operation in manufacturing, in forestry or in agriculture that is making no profits because of the strength of the dollar gets no benefit from the tax cuts. At the same time, the oil industry is getting the reductions too while generating huge profits, which in itself hastens the destabilization in our economy.
If I understand you correctly, you think that the government would be wrong to design fiscal policies specifically to help manufacturing and forestry which are now in crisis because of the strength of the dollar. You share a little of the Conservative government's vision in that you want to apply the rules to everyone and tell yourself that a free market is going to magically produce solutions for everything.
But we think that the government must be proactive instead. Do you not think that manufacturing and forestry need help and that they could benefit from a targeted government initiative? Or do you think that that would be "freezing industry in patterns reflecting yesterday's economy"?