Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for his insight, his humour, and his question.
I would like to start by addressing the challenge we are facing. I heard from the hon. member opposite what I believe to be a significant misunderstanding of the challenges we are facing right now in the economy.
The member opposite identified the shock in oil prices as being the economic challenge that we are facing. In fact, I believe that is one very significant challenge that we are facing, but we are facing a much more significant challenge over the long term in this country.
We are facing a challenge that we have been looking at for a while. We are facing low and volatile global growth. We are facing a demographic challenge that means that over the long term, we will have significantly fewer workers per retiree in this country.
In those sorts of circumstances, the right policy response is to make investments to improve the protective capacity of our country. We are making short-term investments that are going to help us with the shock. We are making investments in people through improving our employment insurance system.
However, importantly, we are facing up to the real challenges that we know must be faced to help Canadians over the long term. As we face those demographic challenges, it would be irresponsible if we did not take action today to ensure that we can have a more productive economy tomorrow. That is exactly what we have embarked on in budget 2016.
The discussion today is about that. It is about how we are going to make a difference in the future for those people we are responsible for, and those young people today who are going to be facing a more uncertain future. That is what we are doing.
We are proud of what we are doing. We are pleased to be able to present it to this House tonight.