The wording in the bill is incredibly vague and generic. I mean, there are things like, we're going to approve projects that benefit the economy of Canada. Duh. I'm sorry, but that is just so.... It wouldn't say, “No, no, we're going to have projects that hurt Canada.” It just sounds absurd to me. It tells me that this was whipped together awfully quickly. The government is just basically mouthing platitudes instead of giving any kinds of specifics, such as what sectors these should be in.
I mean, we have a lot of information in this country about what types of projects are needed. Why not more specifics? I think it's because this has been whipped together awfully quickly. The government wants to give itself an immense amount of leeway, and that's a problem.
Let's face it. That's a problem. How can you pass a bill when you don't really even know what it's talking about?
The manufacturing community has suffered greatly over the last decade, sadly, because as a country we say that we want to retain a strong manufacturing sector. Part of our problem—my background is as an economist—is that we know we have a huge productivity issue in Canada. The number one sector that will help our productivity is manufacturing and, actually, oil and gas as well. Those are the sectors that are so productive that they bring up the productivity performance of the entire country, yet those are being horribly neglected by the federal government—and by some provincial governments as well, to be fair.
The lack of specificity, the vagueness, I think that's a major problem. The government is asking for an enormous amount of trust but is not giving us enough detail to really warrant much trust on the part of the business community or the electorate in general.