What do I mean by written off? From the Department of Industry; International Tin Council, $4.6 million. From FORD-Q; Nambera Studio, $63,000, a grant to a company that went bankrupt. From ACOA; Preston & Area Development Fund, $144,000, $570,000 write-off, uncollectable. There are zillions of them. Maybe not zillions, there are some success stories.
Would we have had the same successes whether or not taxpayers' money was involved in underwriting these businesses? That is the question.
There are some instances where taxpayers' money has proven to be beneficial. For instance, the hon. member opposite has brought to my attention time and time again the auto pact and what a great benefit it has been to the country. However, when we are talking about these things, we are talking about huge sectoral vision things. We are not talking about the little industry or a little micro thing. We are talking about vision and the broad picture.
We did not get into this mess by accident. We got into it because we thought we could make investment decisions on behalf of individual taxpayers. We cannot do that.