Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm a great believer in having robust social programs. I'm not one of these crazy capitalists who doesn't want to support a segment of society that needs support. I think it's tragic that we have senior people who were trained for an occupation and who have earned a good living who are then, through no fault of their own, no longer able to get a job in that occupation.
So what can we do in that respect? We need to have a wealthy country so that we can help these people, so that we can help them retrain if that's their inclination, so we can help out with social programs. That's the obligation of Canada if you like. I think we are reasonably good in that respect. Are we good enough? We learned a lot from the 1988 agreement. We learned a lot from the collapse of the fishery in terms of retraining people, but you know what, we survived. If you walk around rural Newfoundland today I can tell you that it is wealthier than it has ever been. Was the road a bumpy road? Yes, it was a bumpy road, but we got there and we're better off as a result.