Mr. Chair, just to make sure people are correct on the record, median wages from 2005 to 2015 rose 12.2%. Canada was one of the only areas in the developed world where we saw median wages go up as compared to other places. We also had the great recession, which some people might say could have easily gone into a depression if not for the good work done by the previous government. I think most members would say that could be a difficult thing, particularly during minority years. As well, during the time I was here, Mr. Chair, Canada did the best out of all of our partners in coming out of that recession, with 1.2 million jobs after the recession. That record is there.
Also, when we talked about doing international development or multilateralism, we would talk about child and maternal health care plans so more children would be born whose parents would be able to take care of them. Those are the kinds of things we did.
The trans-Pacific partnership was something the previous government invested a lot of time in, because we saw Asia and the Pacific in general as a good place to be doing business.
That's how we did it. We did not do it, though, by subsidizing pipelines. As a British Columbian, I have to say that when we see investments of $36 billion in proposed investment not go ahead in the Pacific LNG project because of the enormous amount of regulatory pressure put on it by this government.... They put a regulatory cap on its emissions, and it made the project non-viable. Only now do we find out that they are willing to subsidize natural gas projects and other types of projects like that in other countries.
This is the problem. The government can say it is all about multilateralism, but at the end of the day you are taking taxpayers' money and placing it to the benefit of taxpayers in other countries. I think many people may just say that if we're not going to be supporting projects here in Canada, why are we supporting those projects? I really do hope the government members take note of this, because at the end of the day you have to go to your constituents and say to them that $375 million U.S. was.... You were at this committee, and you didn't say anything other than supportive bromides.
Thank you.