I believe I have actually asked them, but I will ask again.
That's a great point.
I have not been able to find it, and so I will ask the library. I will keep everyone updated too. Who knows how long I'll have the floor? Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll still have the floor, and we can give an update going forward.
Thank you very much for that point.
I'll continue reading. We'll start at “The stock”. I know I'm repeating, but it's just to make sure we don't miss anything.
It says:
The stock of non-residential capital [investment]...to the labour force peaked in the last quarter of 2015. By the first quarter of 2022, every type of capital was below that peak. Only engineering construction did not begin to decline shortly after 2015. It continued to grow through 2021, and its stock per available worker was down a comparatively small 1 percent by the first quarter of 2022. The stock of non-residential buildings per available worker fell between 2015 and 2020 before growing in 2021. The stocks of [intellectual property] and [machinery and equipment] per worker have been falling quite steadily since 2014.
I'll just pause there for a second.
There is an interaction between government spending and capital stocks as well, although, as the authors point out, it's far less clear than private investment. As any Keynesian would tell you, generally if there's expansionary fiscal and monetary policy, which there certainly has been over the last nine years—we've seen record deficits, record debt—you would actually expect productivity to increase, simply because the government is making substantial investments. They're in effect mortgaging the future for these. Because they're spending these dollars, you would expect at least a small uptick in productivity and in capital investment. The government is taking resources from the private sector and from future generations through borrowing, and employing them in the economy. In fact, it's absolutely essential that this happens; otherwise, you are shortchanging future generations, because we're spending this money but not getting any return back.
In fact, I was at Port Hope High School, and I told them, “Here's the reality, guys. We have a debt of $1.4 trillion. The reality is, given my likely lifespan, I will not be paying back a large portion of this debt in my life. However, you guys will, and eventually this will come to a head. Any time you talk to any politicians, I would highly recommend you ask about climate change, because I think it's important to have an environment, but the second question I would ask of nearly every politician would be how they are going to pay down this debt so that we don't get stuck with it”, because that's exactly what's going on right now.
It continues:
The declines in the stock of [manufacturing and equipment] and [intellectual property] per member of the workforce are particularly worrisome. Past research has identified [machinery and equipment] investment as particularly important for productivity growth—
The author cites several articles there.
—[Intellectual property] investment is a plausible indicator of Canada's likely future performance in a world where intangible capital is increasingly important.... Whatever special messages the recent [machinery and equipment] and [intellectual property] numbers may convey, the message from stocks of business capital overall is clear: the average member of Canada’s labour force began 2022 with less capital to work with than she or he had in 2015.
The interesting part is that while it's certainly not apparent to me that our Liberal Party elites get that, and even some of the folks on Bay Street don't seem to have figured that out, do you know who gets that? They are the workers on the factory floor.
Go to a factory nearly anywhere in your community and bring up Pierre Poilievre. I guarantee that you will get an incredible amount of support. You could do the same and mention Justin Trudeau, but you might want to have some earmuffs on or something, because some of the language you'll hear will likely not be appropriate.
They get it. They get it, whether intuitively or they've done the research and reading themselves. They are not being invested for. They are not being taken care of. They are not being dealt with fairly by this government, and the result is lower levels of investment and productivity. Oligopolies are getting wealthy. Some businesses are doing all right, but workers are getting the short end of the stick, and they realize it.
I would be embarrassed if I were a New Democratic Party member, because they're supposed to stand up for the workers. It's not just a fluke. It's not just because the leader of the official opposition is a great communicator, which he is; it's because there's a truth that's being revealed that the NDP and the Liberals don't care about Canadian workers, because if they did, they would immediately start putting in policies and procedures and tax policies that ramp up capital investment so that our workers are given a fair deal, because they can't earn the wages that they should earn without proper amounts of capital investment.
Our federal government is failing. These Liberals are failing to put in place the policies, and the NDP sign on to this. It's embarrassing to their legacy. It truly is.
I try not to speak that strongly, especially about my colleagues. I know that their hearts are all in the right place, but the reality is that the most vulnerable are going to food banks, and Canadian workers are getting the short end of the stick.
I'll just use unparliamentary language. If they want to do a point of order, they can. Canadian workers are being screwed.
I'll continue reading:
We would like to compare Canada's capital-stock numbers over longer periods and against comparable numbers abroad—