My colleague, Mr. Pineault, highlighted the different sources of economic weakness, business investment. Mr. Weir did the same. Mr. Pineault also mentioned the very poor trade performance.
Our exports have been stagnant. In fact, they've fallen back to a level equivalent to where they were in the year 2000, and our imports have grown much more. We do have a current account deficit in Canada. It's about $60 billion a year. I would argue that's more significant than a budget deficit, primarily because it shows flagging competitiveness in world markets, and every dollar of that in one way or another translates into increased indebtedness to the rest of the world.
Our budget deficit, on the other hand, first of all is much smaller. Second, the federal debt as a share of GDP, which is the more appropriate measure of the level of indebtedness, is already falling and is at rather modest levels. I think we should pay more attention to some of those other sources of weakness and less attention to balancing the budget as fast as possible, which I wouldn't even view as an appropriate goal at this junction.