Madam Speaker, I was saying that there are so many other better things to criticize the government for and I could have given a long list. There are a couple of points I would like to make.
In British Columbia we could only wish that an auto plant would close. We do not have any auto plants in British Columbia because of the longstanding industrial strategy of the federal government to ensure that the auto industry is focused in a narrow geographic area. We do not have an aerospace industry to shut down because it is focused on a specific area because of a long term government industrial strategy.
We could wish for a shutdown but we do not have those industries because the government has not allowed the marketplace to determine where the plants should be located. For too long it has used government strategy, government subsidies and government money to make sure that we in British Columbia are hewers of wood and carriers of water instead of having the diversified industrial economy we could have had if the government and others before it had not interfered in the free marketplace.
I ask the member to comment on his explanation that it is wrong, and I agree with him, for the government at this time to intervene in a market driven economy and to give public money to a profitable corporation. It is making profits and is one of the biggest employers in Canada. It is just plain wrong.
Would he also agree that it is wrong to give other kinds of government subsidies to profitable businesses in the same way? Why for example would the government continue to give different industrial type subsidies to Bombardier? Again it is a profitable and very successful Canadian company which we can be proud of. However it does not deserve or need in my opinion government largesse because it is already making a good profit and producing good products.
To be consistent, would it not be right to wean all of these companies off the government teat so that they would finally carry their own load in the free market world that we increasingly have to compete in? We could do away with the challenges from Brazil. We could do away with the accusations that ministers use their relationships with people in companies to get stuff and all of that. Would it not be better just to get out of the business of business and let the free market decide what is successful?