Mr. Speaker, the member for Vaughan, who is a past chair of the Standing Committee on Finance and has also been in cabinet, knows what challenges Canada faced directly. Tough decisions had to be made because we were compared to a banana republic in terms of our integrity and our financial position.
We were a basket case when it really came down to it, but when a government works hard, moves things in the right direction and gets its fiscal house in order, that means other things can happen. Good things happen. In fact, we grew to be probably one of the best-performing countries in the G-7, year after year. For how many years did the United Nations say that Canada was the best country in the world in which to live, work and raise a family?
The member is right. If the fundamentals are not there, if the perception is not there, and if the integrity and credibility of a government are in question, how are we to promote foreign investment and international trade?