Mr. Speaker, let me get this straight. Last month the industry minister gave a speech in which he said “Canada's productivity is falling. We are $7,000 per person behind the United States”. Yesterday the industry department released another report saying that as of February of this year we are falling behind.
Yesterday the Alliance of Manufacturers and Exporters said that we have fallen from fifth to seventh in the G-7 in terms of productivity and this finance minister still stands and denies the cold, hard facts.
Why does he not agree that we have a problem and develop a solution in terms of tax relief and debt reduction to improve Canada's productivity?