Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, members of the committee, for making time for the St. John's Board of Trade to speak on this subject. I'm going to keep my presentation in the context of Canada's position in the global economy.
When you look around the world right now, you see governments in Europe and south of us in the United States struggling with large deficits and large debts. These issues are affecting the real economy as well. In Canada, through the last recession, we have increased our deficits quite substantially, and we've been adding to our debt. At the St. John's Board of Trade, we believe it's time to get back to basics, and time for the government to focus on the core role of government and to reduce its costs. We believe that for things like the public service, costs should be reduced proportionately.
In the past, we've seen that in some regions cuts have been deeper than they have been in central Canada. We believe, to the extent that cuts in the number of civil servants and the cost of services are required, that these need to be done on a proportional basis so everybody is delivering the services proportionally across the country. We think doing so is important because Canada relies heavily on resources, and resource prices rise and fall with the global economy. These are things we don't control. All we really control is our own spending.
Looking at ways to reduce costs, we believe the private sector can deliver many of the services the government currently delivers directly, and can do it more cheaply and more efficiently, thus freeing up funds for the federal government to be able to focus on core government programs.
We also believe, though, as was the case in the last downturn when there was some stimulus spending, there are times when strategic investments need to be made. We believe this may still be the case in some areas. We really think these investments should be based on evidence and should be delivered, to the extent possible, with partners in the private sector.
I will give you a couple examples. These are the types of things we believe would help stimulate economic activity in the future, as opposed to just adding expensive infrastructure to be maintained later. These examples include things like the recent adoption by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of a policy asking the federal government to develop a plan for northern gateways across Canada. We believe this sort of thing will stimulate economic activity into the future and would be a worthwhile investment.
Another example is the adoption by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of a policy saying we should have the federal government, through public policy and potential investment, ensure that we have an east-west power grid and, to the extent that is practical, a north-south one as well, so that provincial rivalries will not get in the way of good economics. There is an important role there for the federal government. We think these are the sorts of things, to the extent that stimulus spending is required, that should be focused on rather than just adding expensive infrastructure.
That's the end of my formal comments, so I'll leave it at that.