Mr. Speaker, productivity is a challenge, and that is why previous budgets and this budget address the assistance to our manufacturing sector to invest in technology, in equipment that will increase productivity. A great deal of our foreign trade balance has less to do with the steadily recovering Canadian economy than the inability of some of our traditional markets to buy our goods and our products.
However, again I would look to the Retail Council of Canada, which said, “All in all, this is a very good budget for Canadian retailers”. The Association of Canadian Community Colleges said:
...this is an encouraging budget that helps support measures to address the gap in skills affecting so many sectors of the economy. The budget also recognizes the important role played by colleges and institutes in Canada's innovation system....
Again, it is an investment that will speak to future improvements in Canadian productivity.