Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased with my colleague's intervention because a sure sign of a Liberal losing an argument is when he mischaracterizes his opponent's point of view, as we have just heard. It was either a deliberate effort to mischaracterize my position or he simply was not listening.
I made it amply clear that my colleagues and I believe that there is an appropriate but limited function for certain forms of government assistance when related to our overall international development objectives, as part of our overall strategic objectives. There is some limited role, but those functions now performed by the EDC which could be performed in the private sector ought to be. It is very simple.
Of course whenever a conservative in this country makes an argument of that nature, immediately a Liberal or a socialist jumps up and suggests that we are advocating the elimination of government and the sort of night watchman state, which is an absurd, laughable, ridiculous mischaracterization of our view. Our view is simply that through history, the market in this country and every other jurisdiction in the world by and large consistently produce more wealth and better results at lower costs, raising people's standard of living, than does the state. It is a fundamental principle which cannot be contested.
I simply want to say that we do believe that companies that need financing will be able to find that financing and insurance in the private sector. The member said that $45 billion of exports happened because of government intervention. What nonsense. The member talked about being simplistic. He does not understand the first principles of economics if he really believes that. It is called moral hazard. Any company worth its salt is going to seek government financing for export deals it would execute without that financing.
The question is, what are the opportunity costs? How many companies have spent how many hours and how much time filling out how many forms and changing their export business in order to satisfy the EDC and to get government financing? There is enormous opportunity costs associated with any government granting program of that nature.
I would simply suggest to the member that it is much like the government's Team Canada missions. They go abroad with a big dog and pony show. Companies which are signing up deals anyway are told to initial memoranda of understanding when the Prime Minister is there. Then the government says that the Prime Minister has created $5 billion or $10 billion of new trade with that jurisdiction. That is absolute nonsense. Commerce happens despite the intervention of government, not because of it.