Madam Speaker, I want to build on my colleague's excellent speech. The Prime Minister has spent a great deal of time travelling abroad, signing memorandums of understanding and participating in high-profile international events. While international engagement certainly plays an important role in advancing Canada's interests, it cannot come at the expense of the pressing priorities we face here at home. Canadians are looking for leadership that is grounded, focused, and attentive to the challenges facing families, workers and entrepreneurs across this country, but right now they are not seeing it.
Our trade agenda is only as strong as our domestic economy. The reality is simple: No agreement abroad will fix Canada's outdated tax system. No foreign handshake or high-level summit will modernize our regulatory structures. None of these trips will improve the service delivery of our public institutions, increase the personnel of our military or update our privacy and intellectual property laws to reflect a rapidly changing global environment. These are the tasks that require committed national leadership, leadership that begins here, not on the international conference circuit.
On October 22, 2025, the Prime Minister announced in Ottawa an ambitious goal: to double Canada's non-U.S. exports over the next decade. Conservatives take that objective seriously. We worked constructively with the government and granted the Liberals unprecedented authorities under Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, to empower the government to pursue those ambitions. We believe that if the government were prepared to act boldly, we could collectively position Canada for long-term economic strength, but a year has passed, and the patience of Canadian entrepreneurs is wearing thin.
Consider the economic picture before us. Over the last decade under the Liberals, approximately $500 billion in foreign capital has left Canada. This is not an abstract figure. It represents lost opportunity, lost productivity and lost confidence in Canada's economic direction. Investment that could have helped build industries, create jobs and support innovation has instead gone elsewhere, to countries like Ireland, where the Prime Minister has citizenship. Ireland has robust foreign direct investment through a modern taxation system.
At the same time, according to the Business Development Bank of Canada, Canada today has 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs than we did 10 years ago, even though our population has grown by 10 million. This is a staggering shift. It means fewer new businesses, fewer new ideas and fewer pathways for economic growth. For a country built on ambition, creativity and enterprise, this decline should ring alarm bells for every policy-maker in Ottawa, but is not being talked about.
Canada's economic challenges will not be solved through symbolism abroad or even by Bill C-13, but through practical action here at home. Therefore, if the Prime Minister is truly committed to strengthening Canada's economy, here is what I believe he must do right now.
First, we need to reform Canada's tax system. We need a system that rewards effort, investment and innovation rather than penalizes them. Entrepreneurs must see Canada as a place where risk-taking is supported and where success is not met with punitive tax burdens. That means revisiting profit-sharing models, capital gains rules and the taxation environment for start-ups so talented Canadians can build their ideas into thriving enterprises that scale up in Canada.
Second, the Prime Minister should work with the Conservatives to repeal anti-energy laws that have contributed to pushing investment out of this country. He knows these policies are not working. They have created uncertainty, discouraged development and weakened one of Canada's greatest competitive advantages. It is time to scrap them, not go over them and leave them in place, in order to reverse the capital outflow we are seeing. Yesterday I was pleased to support a private member's bill from the member for Calgary Signal Hill to do exactly that by removing the moratorium on oil tankers in British Columbia.
Third, we must move away from the government's habit of picking economic winners and losers. The Minister of Finance's experiment with large production subsidies for automakers has not delivered the results Canadians expected. We were promised a thriving auto industry less than two years ago in the House. This example should stand for all Canadians that big subsidies to big corporations do not result in better jobs for Canadian workers and families.
Fourth, we need to reform service delivery within the public service. The public service has grown exponentially, but we are not seeing the necessary results. We have to do that work.
Fifth, the government must outline and commit to essential infrastructure upgrades. The ports in British Columbia are wonderful. We love them. However, they are not performing at their capacity. We lack the strategic infrastructure investments across Canada to move people and goods in a way that is commensurate with a G7 economy. We have to grow up and get that work done.
The sixth thing is very important. The Prime Minister should dedicate as much time to engaging with first nations leaders here at home as he does with world leaders abroad. Why do I say that? The Supreme Court of Canada has made many rulings in the last number of years outlining the rights and titles of first nations. For economic reconciliation at large to take place, we have to look at new models of engaging with our first nations.
I believe in a Canada where first nations people on reserve are all millionaires, have more economic potential and economic drive than the average Canadian and are pushing new projects in rural Canada that are lifting up Canada's economy and contributing to our GDP in ways we never thought imaginable. The Prime Minister has a social license to do that right now, but he prefers to go on international trips than to engage with Canadians here at home.
On that point, seventh is that in B.C. we are facing some real and significant challenges on private property and fee simple land. B.C. is the gateway to doubling our exports abroad. If the Prime Minister does not take seriously the concerns of everyday British Columbians on ensuring that fee simple land and private property are essential to Canada's economy, people will continue to move their money outside British Columbia. We will not see the strategic mineral reserves developed nor exports grow; we will see the opposite. He has to be on top of this file. We cannot live in a society where private property is not protected, but this is the number one issue coming up in B.C. right now.
Finally, we must improve Canada's intellectual property laws and privacy laws. We are outdated, not modern, and it is hurting our entrepreneurs. We have to do better. The Minister of Industry needs to bring forward the requisite legislation to improve things like open banking, to ensure that children are protected on the Internet, and to ensure that we are giving our tech companies the biggest bang for their buck if they decide to stay in Canada.
Despite the challenges we face, Canada's potential is extraordinary. We are blessed with abundant resources like no other nation on earth is, but we are squandering a critical period in time when we could be doing so much more. By refocusing on the fundamentals, prioritizing economic growth at home and making the structural reforms to our economy that we can do only in the chamber, we can restore some confidence in Canada's economy, bring 100,000 entrepreneurs back into Canadian society and reverse the outflow of foreign direct investment. None of these trade deals will matter if we do not get our economic house in order.