Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's comments with great interest. It seems something is missing from the member's comments.
He is looking at things as though we were living in a vacuum, as though somehow the government could create a massive market that would somehow replace the U.S. housing downturn. Today I am sure we heard from the Liberal Party that apparently the government is somehow supposed to replace the seven million vehicle sales missing from the U.S. market this year.
These downturns are cyclical. We have seen them before. They are not the fault of the government. The government cannot replace that market, but what has the government done? It has put massive amounts of stimulus into the economy.
Under the heading of imitation being the most sincere form of flattery, today we saw the British Labour government introduce some $30 billion in reductions to its value-added tax, the tax identical to the GST. We see the British now following Canada's lead. Today we heard president-elect Obama say that he is not only not going to increase taxes, but is going to further reduce taxes, once again following Canada's lead and following the lead of the Prime Minister and the finance minister. More than a year ago, they had the foresight to act to prepare Canada.
We see Canada outperforming these nations. I encourage the member to take a look at what we have done. We are on the right track.