Mr. Davies, let me say that from the beginning my goal has been to increase Canada's export performance and to use trade and investment to drive economic prosperity in Canada.
What you failed to mention is that the sudden decrease in the value of our exports is almost exclusively attributable to the fact we've just encountered a significant global oil price shock. As you know, oil exports are a significant commodity for export for Canadians, and when you see a sudden precipitous decline in the price of oil, obviously you're going to see that affect the bottom line.
The reality is that if you look at volumes of exports, those exports are up by 5% this last month, and over the last quarter. So the economic activity taking place has actually grown, but the value of the exports of oil because of the dramatic drop in oil prices has affected the bottom line.
The other thing I would add is that when we look at trade and investment performance abroad, we don't look at it primarily from month to month to month. We look at the long-term trajectory. When you look at last year, we had a significant turnaround in our trade performance. We posted a surplus of $5.2 billion, which was a turnaround of $12 billion over the previous year. I expect that as oil prices recover, we'll see an improvement in the dollar performance of our exports. Our export volumes are still up there.
The other thing we're going to do is to continue to focus on opening up new markets for Canadian exporters. We're going to focus on promoting our trade tools to the very companies that need those tools to be successful in new markets. I'm confident that in terms of the long term, and even the medium term, you'll see excellent trade performance.