Mr. Speaker, humanity has always relied on innovation, ingenuity and hard work, the kind that I see a lot of among my colleagues, to move forward and create economic growth where there were no natural resources. We can see examples of that in the Asian tiger economies, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, all the places where investments were made in people, knowledge and innovation to encourage certain industries to prosper. They succeeded, and we need to do that. Not every part of Canada is rich in every natural resource and we need to remember that as we think about how to move Canada's economy forward and improve the productivity of our people.
In the House of Commons on May 8th, 2012. See this statement in context.