Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question. It is an interesting one, because in a country the size of Canada, with a population of roughly 30 million, the key to a lot of our economic success is the role we are to play on the international market and what we will accomplish there.
What is very gratifying for me in my role as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources is dealing with companies that are actually building model homes or sending building materials into the international marketplace.
I recently had a meeting with a model home builder who is building homes for the Japanese market. A lot of people said that would not happen, that we could not crack that market. The manufacturer was telling me that he cannot supply the demand, that if he could generate more he would. The market is flooded with the types of housing that do not fit the strict criteria necessary in the Japanese market. Canadians have developed the techniques, the building standards, and those types of things that make it easier for us to introduce our products into the international marketplace.
I hear the Reform Party from time to time talk about doing away with the Department of Natural Resources, saying that the federal government has no role to play. As we set the standards so that we can meet the international criteria and the International Standards Association requirements, as we do the research and the development that is necessary and develop the new technologies that allow our industries to compete in the international marketplace, we are making that contribution to creating jobs in Canada. That is where the housing market has an integral role to play.
In my home province, Kent Homes, part of a larger company, is building model homes and is trying to sell those all around the world. Just as I described the number of people who were working on my house when I was building it, the same sorts of things are going on in the construction of model homes. These are job creators. They are a transfer of money, jobs, and growth to the international marketplace so that we can then reap the returns from those activities.
The Department of Natural Resources has an excellent role to play, CMHC has a role to play, and we at the federal government
level have a very important role to play in creating employment through housing. This bill will make one small step for that approach.