Mr. Speaker, I thank the members of the Bloc for some constructive suggestions. I do not think anybody promised that those would be in the economic update. I know the Bloc has not been in government. It takes a while to put these together. We certainly will take those into consideration when we develop the budget, and I again thank them for those comments.
As I have said before in the House, I encourage all opposition members to put forward constructive suggestions. Members owe it to their constituents as their representatives to not just criticize, but to provide constructive criticism. We will accept that on this side of the House. We want to do what is right for Canadians.
I sense a need to go back and repeat what I said in my first answer, and I know the hon. member for Markham—Unionville may have tuned me out as I spoke. We put a stimulus in place in the fall economic statement of 2007. The hon. member's question was about that.
That economic stimulus was equivalent to 2% of our gross domestic product, which left $31 billion in tax cuts in the pockets of businesses and Canadians. That provided them the flexibility to buy a new home or buy a new car. A reflection of that is car sales are up in Canada this year.
Canadians can choose what to do with their money more wisely than governments can. We tend to not respect, and I have sensed this many times in the House, how hard it is for taxpayers to earn that money. When we throw around numbers like we do and say that is only $30 million, only $30 million is a lot of money to Canadians, especially in difficult economic times. Therefore, we provided the stimulus.
Not only that, opposition members suggest there is nothing in the statement that addresses any industry. I beg to differ. There are $350 million to Export Development Canada, which will leverage $4 billion to the auto industry for exporting automobiles. There are $350 million, as well, to the Business Development Bank of Canada to leverage its lending capacity to provide credit to Canadians. It is a liquidity issue and I wish the opposition would remember that.