Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned that we cannot afford to spend money on training programs. I would submit that we cannot afford not to spend money on training programs. If we do not we will not have a future in this country, quite clearly. There is no question about that.
There is an issue on partnerships. He raised from my speech the issue that other countries do develop and put far more into their training than Canada does. Those are true statistics but Canadian companies are now finally realizing that this is a very important part of their survival too.
I spent this summer visiting the CEOs at many factories in Guelph-Wellington. They realize they have made an error in not bringing people along and not always at a great cost. Many times they could have people on the floor doing things halfway through a shift that they have not been thinking about doing. They have not necessarily seen the new technology coming down the pipe. I submit to the hon. member there are a lot of things we can do better in that area. Our industries know that. I encourage the hon. member to take some time to see this for himself.
The member is quite right. Our businesses have a real problem with some of the wages, CPP and other programs they have to pay into. Our finance minister has continually said that one of the things this government is committed to doing is that we will meet our 3 per cent target. That will help us a lot.