Thank you.
We dispute the belief that it is the government's job to create jobs. When governments set out to create jobs, they essentially have to remove large amounts of money from the productive sectors of the economy.
As we have seen time and time again, governments are not necessarily the best managers of other people's money. The best managers of that money are the people who earn it. We believe that the more money we leave in people's pockets, the better it will be.
In spite of the gloomy picture that I painted a couple of seconds ago, we have scintillating points in this region. The start-ups are one example. We have a growing number of new high-tech, high-paying, extremely innovative businesses in New Brunswick, in P.E.I., and here in Nova Scotia. These are focuses of know-how and entrepreneurship that need some nurturing.
I'm not sure that it's the state that should nurture them, but we should establish a framework of rules that would allow for more investment, and certainly foreign investment, to come in and nurture them. If this committee could do something for this sector, it would be to set up the appropriate framework for it.