Thank you, Mr. Szabo.
I'm going to take the next round here, as the chair.
I wanted to follow up on the issue of productivity that Mr. Page raised in his presentation to the committee.
Mr. Lee, you mentioned foreign investment and some of the protectionism within Canada through Canadian policy. I want Mr. Hodgson, perhaps, to expand on it.
If you look at the 0.8% growth in productivity since 2000, it's a very worrisome trend. But if you look at a lot of the policies introduced by governments since that time, a lot of things have been done that were advised by groups in terms of addressing the productivity issue. A lot of measures have been put in place by governments to address productivity: the reduction in business taxes; the reduction in capital taxes, both at the federal and provincial levels; investments in research and development through granting councils and other initiatives; the generous R and D tax credit; the national child benefit by a former government; and the working income tax benefit. And you look at the solid financial sector. If these figures are correct, they've had a negligible impact. In fact, things have gone the other way relative to what the intent was.
Perhaps you could expand on why the trend is going that way. What should we do to reverse the trend? And why have these measures not had the impact that people who advised them to put them in place thought they would have?