Mr. Speaker, I think we have a challenge here. The member put his finger on a problem that needs to be addressed and that we ought to look at head-on as Canadians.
I told members how painful it was to see people go to the United States with their ideas and commercialize them there. However, the problem that often arises is more complicated. I have heard so many entrepreneurs tell me that they do not want to go to the United States because there is not a health care system they can afford or depend upon, and they look with pride to the health care system that Canada has. Yes, there are lower taxes, and I do not think that is going to change any time soon, but there are other quality of life factors.
I can speak to my riding of Victoria. When Mr. Gunn sells a high-tech company on relocating to Victoria, he tells me that he is often selling the sizzle and not the steak—that is, he is selling the fact that the quality of life in our community is so extraordinary that people want to live there, even though it might be a little more expensive with taxes, even though they might make a little less, because they have to think of families and so forth. That is the first point.
The second point is new Canadians. When I think of the brain drain from developing countries to the United States and Canada, increasingly those people are not interested in going to the United States, for reasons I need not explain to the House. As a consequence, we could be the beneficiaries of those brains, of that entrepreneurial zeal. Do not get me wrong: we have done a good job, and I am proud of our record with respect to bringing in new Canadians, but we should enhance that.
I was in Pakistan recently, and a number of people told me that because they could not get visas to come here to study, they or their kids went to Australia or the U.K., and even begrudgingly to the United States, because our rules seemed to be hamstringing them. It made me angry, because we could get so much from them and they could contribute as other generations of new Canadians have to our economy, yet we find ways to tie them up in red tape. That is one of the ways we can improve and protect intellectual property and create more jobs for Canadians, new and old alike.