Mr. Speaker, today we have seen a lot of patting themselves on the back by members of the Liberal government about this budget. This is their sixth budget.
Being the sixth budget and that we have a major trading partner in the United States where 83% of our exports go to, why have we been falling so far behind in standard of living compared with the United States growth? In other words, living standards in Canada measured as a percentage of gross domestic product per person are now a full 24% lower than they are in the United States. That is a 6% decrease since 1990.
If we are doing so well here, with unemployment rates still twice as high as in the United States, with 2% unemployment rates in California, why are we not experiencing the same type of increase in our standard of living that the Americans are?