Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the minister on his speech. Unfortunately, I cannot completely subscribe to his claim.
Yesterday saw the minister in the United States talking about trade relations with that country, our main trading partner. The U.S. is indeed one of Canada's very important partners, but at a significant cost.
It is not under just any old conditions that we are friends with the United States and it is not under just any old conditions that we export to the United States. To do so, we have to snub our longstanding trading partners, Cuba, for example. Yesterday the minister was reminded fairly vigorously that courting Cuba was not in the best interest of trade relations between our two countries. I would like him to explain to us what he intends to do about this. He has brushed it under the carpet.
Fifty companies in Canada export more than 50 per cent of all Canadian exports, and the minister is telling us we have to increase the number of exporters. Is this an example of the new Liberalism where as many friends as possible get involved at once? Would it not be a better idea to try to have more products and, by inventing new ones, open markets with our own products, produced and created right here? When I say "created right here", we should think about research and development, an area the revenue minister cut and then went back to after the fact. He clawed back the investments of Quebecers and Canadians who had put their money into research and development.
With one small example, I would just like to show the minister the importance of research and development in Canada. When the first white people, the French, arrived in Canada, an ear of corn was about the size of a cigarette. Then, with the opening of the prairies, research was done and this area was studied in depth. Now an ear of corn almost looks like a bologna sausage. The desire and the research produced success.
What have we done in forestry? We have emptied our land of its vast forests. We know that, before it can be cut down, a spruce tree must grow for 50 years in some areas and 40 years in others. We, however, have not gone any further to find a harvesting method that could meet global demand, if we are talking about new exports, new products.
We are still able to export wood because of our huge territory, but we have not made any discoveries in this area. We could engage in research and development, but the minister was not too insistent on this point.
I would like to ask the minister whether he plans to speak to his colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, to make him stop blundering as he did by acting like the highwaymen of the last century, who went after all those who had managed to save a little money and squeezed them dry by collecting their money retroactively.
As the minister would probably admit, the rooster is an early riser so whoever wakes him up must rise even earlier. That is what the minister should do. If he wants to accomplish something, if he wants to get something done, he should rise before the rooster and propose something that makes sense. I am 50 years old and the minister is not saying anything I have not heard before. I never heard an industry or international trade minister admit to us: "I have no ideas. I am no good. I do not think my proposal will work". No minister ever told me that. I am 50 years old, and I am still waiting.
They have all discovered the greatest thing since sliced bread. We, however, can see that the debt has grown to $600 billion, that nothing is working, that the economy in Montreal and other cities is in a free fall, that poverty is rising in direct proportion, while the minister is shouting "Eureka" like the guy in his bathtub.
What we need is R and D, new markets, new products, nothing less. Instead of taking a piece of pie and letting as many people as possible nibble at it, we must put another pie on the table. The minister, however, shows no such political will.
I therefore ask him what he intends to do in this area.