Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and to the Minister of International Trade, and I had the opportunity to travel recently to Colombia and to Panama to further our trade relations and opportunities for Canadian businesses to prosper.
The bill we are debating, Bill C-50, is to continue to keep our country strong and competitive, and our businesses prospering and to promote innovation and productivity.
There has been a lot of discussion coming from British Columbia concerning the forestry sector. In this perfect storm that has been set up, the fact of the increased dollar, the downturn in the housing market in the U.S., and of course the pine beetle that has devastated the forests of British Columbia, our government has reacted with $1 billion throughout the country, about $129 million for British Columbia.
The province of B.C. has been working with the communities to try to help those who have been severely economically impacted, and I am proud of working with our province, our Prime Minister and the government leaders to do that.
I hear a lot of gloom and doom in the House about our economy, and I just want to refer to an online story today from the CBC. BMO capital market economist Doug Porter said, “We know that bad news sells, but this is ridiculous”. We are basically criticizing the media because bad news sells. He said there are all kinds of signs that the economic fundamentals are strong: low inflation rate, rising real incomes, healthy government surpluses, record high employment rate, record car sales, and a strong TSX. He added that rising trade surpluses are positive economic benchmarks.
The glass is more full than half full and it is a good sign that our fundamentals are strong. The Minister of Finance has indicated we have some challenges, but I would like my hon. colleague to talk a little bit about--