Mr. Speaker, as members know, the previous government knew very little about productivity and laid the basis for this country's problems in productivity by running up a debt and a deficit of $42 billion a year.
That is the essence of a number of the problems we face. It is the essence of the reason we have had to take our tax cuts as we have been able to afford them. It is the essence of the problem we have had in making large enough investments in science, research and development, in the National Research Council and in the granting councils. This is the source of a complex problem that we all have a stake in resolving, but they—