Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. minister of state for her speech that dealt more with the topic of debate today than the speech by her Ontario colleague, who got off track talking about the difficulties Ontario consumers faced after Ontario Hydro was dismantled by the ultra-Conservative Mike Harris government. I should point out that a number ministers in the current federal cabinet were sitting at the time to misrepresent that disaster.
That said, I want to get back to the topic at hand and refer my colleague to the Bank of Canada's Monetary Policy Report. This report indicates that the excess capacity of Canadian businesses remains relatively high, as does the long-term unemployment rate for workers aged 25 to 54. We can therefore conclude that Canadian companies lack trust in the future and are therefore not investing. There has been very little investment to improve productivity in recent years. That is a legacy of this government.
Does my colleague agree with the Bank of Canada that there is a problem and that our businesses are not truly prepared to deal with the changes they face as a result of the low price of oil and the value of the Canadian dollar?