Mr. Speaker, I was talking about the hon. Prime Minister. I hope you will forgive the history teacher when she gets the upper hand.
Just after his election, the hon. Prime Minister finally signed the free trade agreement. But more importantly, he became the defender, the grand champion of free trade areas all over the world because Canada is ready to establish free trade areas with APEC countries, the Americas, as well as EFTA—Canada has ambitious plans but it also has more modest ones—whose members are Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
There is no doubt that, after a positive vote on sovereignty, we will be able, if that is deemed desirable, to create a free trade zone that will include Quebec. But if the future is influenced by what is happening in Europe—and chances are that it will be—should we not examine the impact this will have and prepare for that?
Why should we prepare? I am my party's critic for industry, and I know how serious the productivity problem is in Canada, and the Canadian monetary policy did not help.
The secretary of state has suggested that the depreciation of the Canadian dollar preserved jobs, but the low value of our dollar has also made Canadians considerably poorer compared to the Americans. This low value of the dollar, based on a lack of productivity and low salaries, does not only make us poorer, but also makes improving our productivity more difficult, since that involves buying new equipment. But two thirds of equipment purchases in Canada come from abroad, and 90 % of this is from the United States.
The lower the value of our dollar, the more difficult innovation is for Canadian businesses. While we hear flattering pronouncements on that extraordinary Canadian economy, we find a more sobering description of our reality in reports from the industry department. The truth is that if our productivity had improved at the same pace as in the United States, for example, each Canadian would be richer by $7,000. That is a lot of money.
This is not just more separatist trickery, but a real issue that more and more people want us to grapple with, because there are good reasons why we should.
We do not suggest this should be done tomorrow. We say this matter ought to be examined by parliament, because it poses a number of problems, including Canada's increasingly lag behind the U.S.
It is all very fine to go on about an independent monetary policy, but I would point out to my hon. colleagues from Ontario that they have not experienced the chill the eastern provinces have as a result of the Canadian monetary policy. The east has always had the opposite reaction to the rest of Canada. When Ontario was overheating, the rest was just beginning to warm up a little.
I am most anxious to see a committee struck to continue this debate. The debate is under way, however, and it is going to continue, because we are lagging further and further behind the United States, and the rest of the world as well, moreover. In the past 25 years, Canada has recorded the least growth in productivity of all G-7 countries.
The Alliance of Manufacturers of Canada has developed a competitiveness index. For each factor, the country's performance is compared with the top performer in the OECD, and the rating is expressed as a percentage. In 1997, Canada—proud of its performance that year, moreover—was rated at 76%, compared to the Americans' 89% and the OECD countries' 82%.
Michael Porter, the universally respected guru when it comes to competitiveness, judges Canada harshly in a study he has carried out on us. Among Canada's five greatest weaknesses he lists the poor growth in productivity, and the little invested in science and technology.
This prompts me to say that, under those circumstances, one would expect the Canadian government to take a lead role in improving Canadian productivity.
Of course, there were a number of initiatives promoting the knowledge economy, but the truth of the matter is that the budget this year provides $80 million less for science and technology than it did last year.
From an economic point of view, from now on, will our hon. colleagues opposite want to bury their heads in the sand or look at the development tools we will be needing?
Canada can no longer base its sovereignty on an economic policy that has its citizens getting poorer all the time and its exports, which we are so proud of, rely on costs whose main features are our low wages.