Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his comments today. The fact of the matter is that it was the previous Conservative government of Grant Devine in Saskatchewan that privatized Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan on November 2, 1989. It is a corporation that was very successfully operated for many years under the ownership and management of the people of Saskatchewan, and the ideological Conservative government of Grant Devine privatized it in 1989. What did the federal Conservative government of Brian Mulroney do at the time? No concerns were expressed at all. The Liberal opposition did not seem to be concerned about it at all. That was the beginning of the problems with regard to this particular deal.
The statistics overall point to a very sorry record of successive Conservative and Liberal governments. For example, in 1,638 foreign takeovers, there were 334 just last year alone and only one was disallowed by the Canadian government. In 2009, the government reviewed only 22 out of 338 takeovers, according to Industry Canada. In one year alone, 2006, foreign control over Canada's mining sector rose from 12% to 40%. Between 1985 when the Investment Canada Act came into force under Brian Mulroney and September 30, 2010, Industry Canada reviewed, once again, 1,638 foreign acquisition worth almost $600 billion and approved all but one.
So the fact of the matter is that, historically, whether it is Conservative or Liberal, it is the same thing.