Mr. Speaker, again, the hon. member for Malpeque and the New Democrats have been focusing on the government's disastrous trade record for the last six years. The parliamentary secretary was just attempting, very weakly, to defend what is an abysmal trade deficit. We went from a $17 billion surplus when the Conservatives came to office in 2006 to what is now a $67 billion deficit. He attempted to brush that off by saying that we've had a global recession, that commodity prices are low and that other countries have suffered.
We did a study two weeks ago that compared Canada's current trade account record with 17 other countries around this world: the United States, Japan, Germany, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Peru. They are all countries that have been operating in the same global environment, have gone through the same global recession and have to deal with the same commodity prices and currency fluctuations. What did we find? Eight countries have been running trade surpluses at the same time that the Conservatives have been in power. Five of those countries have trade deficits, but they are improving, and five countries have trade deficits, and they are deteriorating. Guess who is in the 18th position, the last place out of 18 countries? It is Canada under the Conservative government. It is no excuse to say that this massive current account deficit is someone else's fault. It is the Conservatives' fault.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague if he would like to comment on those numbers as opposed to the spin we hear from the government?