Madam Speaker, I do not know if I can answer my colleague's question directly. For a couple of years I have not been involved in that department. I would need to know a bit more about it, but I think it probably has the potential for doing a lot of good.
I know that some very good work has come out of the department and out of the standing committee, but what bothers me is that the member made the statement that we cannot do things today the way we did 20 years ago. I agree, but I have a problem with that because I see the same things being done by the government that it was doing 20 years ago.
Why is it that the government cannot afford to give a tax break to our Canadian companies? Part of the reason is that it has grown the size of government. All levels of government are involved. It is not just the federal government but all levels of government that are involved in this. Thirty years ago, the size of government in Canada was about 30% of GDP of the country. Our major trading partner and competitor, the United States, was at about 30% at the same time.
Today the size of the government versus the GDP in the United States is 29%, but Canada has grown our government to 42%. If that were all constructive, it would not be a problem, but I see a lot of waste in government. I do not buy into the fact that government can do things better than the private sector in the areas that the private sector has specialized in. I do not know why we are still in some of those areas. To some extent we have not recognized that we have a productivity problem in this country. It has been in the making for the last 30 years. I blame part of that on the size of the government itself, on the fact that we are collecting so many taxes from Canadians to pay for government.
In regard to what we can do at the World Trade Organization, the member said that Canada has been showing leadership. I would just point out that in the area of trade liberalization, as I said earlier, I think it is pretty well accepted that trade liberalization has enabled a lot of countries to really pick up their standard of living. I think it is pretty well an accepted fact that the fewer tariffs and subsidies there are around the world the better the economy works, with more flow of goods and services at a price that people can afford.
How can Canada go to the World Trade Organization talks, whether it was at the old Doha or Uruguay rounds, and say that it wants market access to be opened to Canadian products but in turn access to our markets would be denied on certain products? It is not consistent. What I have maintained is that it puts us in a position where we are marginalized, because people say we are not free traders at all, that all we want is a sweetheart deal for our own products.
Those are a couple of areas that I would point out to the member.