Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is a fellow alumnus of the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate, and he clearly understands the importance of defining his terms. I note that he began by defining economic growth in terms of the economy's capacity to produce output. Of course, by that definition, we can only look at the supply side, and productivity is the only factor that matters to economic growth.
We are all in support of more productivity, but I wonder if the House would accept that economic growth is actually about the total amount of output, which depends not only on productive capacity, but also on the demand for output. I wonder if the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan would acknowledge that in the current context of unemployed workers and unemployed resources, it is actually possible to increase economic growth by increasing demand through measures such as government spending.