Madam Speaker, first of all, I have to say that this is the first time that anyone on that side of the House of Commons has congratulated me for speaking for a really long time. I did not expect that.
Second, I have not read the book Abundance, but frankly, the member opposite says that one cannot build anything in the United States. The economy there is actually growing. The most recent quarter was up 3.4%. In fact, the budget, published by the government, showed that, if productivity gains had been the same in Canada as they had been in the United States from 2017 to 2023, the average Canadian family would be $11,000 richer today.
Why are we not more productive, even though we have the best workers in the world? It is because our economy is starved of investment. We have the lowest investment per capita in the G7. The worker in Canada gets $15,000 of investment. The American worker gets $28,000.
We need to unlock the massive power of free enterprise if we want to change that, to the benefit of the worker and the entrepreneur here in Canada.