Mr. Speaker, I want to tie something in to the Pacific gateway. It is with respect to some of the comments that have been made here, our productivity, what we are as a nation, and our abilities.
Some have suggested that we are simply a nation of hewers of wood and those who fish and give up our raw products to foreign markets, but nothing could be further from the truth. We are a nation that exports, to be sure a nation that has to export because of the small size of our population but our large size in geography.
Having said that, let me note that we are also a nation of extremely talented and well educated people who have been able to use our resources as a nation to export much more than wood, minerals and other raw products. We are a nation of exporters of value added products. Indeed, we are leaders in technology in various parts of the world. In fact, from a public perspective, our government has made our country one of the biggest investors in research in the entire world. Our government invests on a per capita basis in research just about as much as any other country in the world.
My question for the hon. member gets down to productivity. The Pacific gateway strategy is a part of something that has to be dealt with and is being dealt with in regard to our economic capability and competitiveness in the world, and that is the issue of productivity.
I would like to ask my hon. friend whether he will support the initiatives to continue to reduce taxes, to remove rules and regulations, to work with the provinces to invest in education and develop products and initiatives nationally to fill the deficits that we have as a country with respect to our professional capabilities in the trades, for example, and in other areas. I think that is fundamentally important. I know that the Minister of Finance is working on this.
Does the member for Halton support this notion of improving our productivity so that our private sector can continue to compete internationally with its competitors, so our country will move forward to be on the cusp of being a world leader in a broad array of arenas, and so we will be able to provide value added, high paying jobs here in Canada?