Mr. Speaker, it really does beg the question of why government after government, whether Liberal or Conservative, takes the exact same economic approach to the running of our country.
What is that approach? That approach is to cut back on the role of government. How does it do that? It does that by starving our budgets. We should all pay down our debts but it is a question of degree. Do we aggressively pay down our mortgage if our roof is falling in? No. We need to have balance. However, neither of the previous parties in government have had balance. What they have done, step by step, almost by stealth, is starve our governments of funds and then argue that they did not have the funds to invest in the significant social, cultural, environmental, economic infrastructures that this country so badly needs.
I was saying earlier that before the tax cut era Canada was fifth in the level of competitiveness. After seven years of tax cuts, guess what? We are in 16th place. Even by their own measure of economic success, they are failing. Who are we losing to? We are losing to countries like the Nordic countries that in fact have a higher tax regime. Why? It is because they are more successful societies. They are investing in their people, in their economies and in their infrastructures, and, guess what, it pays off.