Mr. Speaker, since this is the first time I am rising in the House in this capacity, I want to thank the people of Kanata—Carleton for having placed their confidence in me. I also want to thank my husband, Rob, and my children, Kyle and Brea, for their confidence and support over all these many years.
There has been much discussion about Canada's current economic situation and its economic performance over the past decade. This discussion should not be treated as just another example of partisan bickering. It demands serious and in-depth analysis. This analysis is critical, because the consequences of getting it wrong will have a serious impact on all Canadians.
Of course, Liberals believe that the previous Conservative approach to the economy was the wrong approach for the country. This is why the economy ended up being a primary issue for most of the recent election campaign.
Einstein is quoted as saying that if he had one hour to save the world, he would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only five minutes trying to find the solution.
I believe that we need to be honest with ourselves about the state of the Canadian economy. We need to stop playing politics with the data to create a false sense of security. We also need to be honest with ourselves about the challenges ahead. We need to select a course of action that can help turn around this weak economy and actually help the thousands of Canadians who are currently struggling.
Do we want to talk about balanced budgets? We can. Canada may have had one balanced budget since 2007-08, but that was only because of fire sales of Canada's property assets around the world. However, Canada did have balanced budgets from 1996 to 2007, and during that period, we paid down our national debt by almost $70 billion.
The previous government delivered deficit after deficit for the budget years 2008 to 2014. During the tenure of the previous government, it added almost $150 billion of new debt to our national debt. If we take that $153 billion and spread it over seven years, it translates to deficits of about $20 billion per year.
We need to stop considering snapshots in time as a true indicator of annual performance. We need to stop playing politics with the numbers and the Canadian economy, and together we need to get to work.
The level of economic activity in Canada and the government's revenue vary depending on the season. The government receives more revenue during the summer months when all the seasonal industries, such as the fisheries and the agricultural, forestry, construction, and tourism industries, are active. However, expenses have to be paid all year long. As a result, any consideration of the matter of deficit must reflect the entire fiscal year, not just a select period in the most economically active months.
I would like to remind members that the 2015 update of economic and fiscal projections indicated that, under the previous government, the Canadian economy shrank in the first quarter of 2015. The gross domestic product dropped by 0.8% in the first quarter and 0.5% in the second. We still do not have the figures for the third quarter, but there is nothing to suggest that the economic conditions have improved.
There will also be a deficit of approximately $3 billion for the 2015-16 fiscal year.
With the previous government running all of these deficits, including in the 2015-16 fiscal year, what does Canada have to show for it?
First, let us talk about job losses. It is estimated that 400,000 good-paying jobs in manufacturing and heavy industry have been lost, and now a further calamitous loss of 70,000 jobs in the once booming oil sector.
My colleague from Windsor, Ontario must well know that Windsor was once a booming city of Canada's manufacturing heartland. It now has an unemployment rate of 9.7%, and has had for almost five or six years.
Other important facts and figures put together by independent non-partisan officials include those related to Canada's trade deficit. Under the previous government, Canada hit record trade deficits. For a country whose economy has such a strong basis in exports, this demonstrates the failures of the previous government to diversify our economy and make it more resilient.
While I acknowledge that the previous government did make efforts toward diversifying which markets we were selling to, it neglected to consider the diversity of the products that we were bringing to the global market. It also neglected to do enough to spur more investment into research and development to help design, build and sell made-in-Canada products and technologies.
With respect to the record trade deficits, Canada needs to be an export nation. Canada's all-time trade surplus of $8.5 billion was in 2001 under a Liberal government. The all-time low for Canada was a $3.7 billion deficit in March of 2015. That is a $12.2 billion difference from high to low.
It is important to remember that when we sell a raw product, we are only earning 30% of the available equity in that product. For every step we take that product up the value-added chain, we can be earning another 20% to 30% of the equity in that product, while creating jobs at the same time.
In order for Canada's economy to be strong and robust, it needs to be flexible and diversified and cannot be left entirely at the mercy of the commodities markets. Economists have warned that the commodities markets are known for being vulnerable to interference, speculation, and manipulation, and that is the situation we are in today, a boom-bust cycle.
Workers across Canada are now facing the consequences of the previous government failing to anticipate the current situation and failing to ensure that contingency plans were in place to deal with the possibility of an oil glut. Can we make money with oil at $30 a barrel when we are only getting a discounted price for our product? That is what has been happening for the last few years.
Canada has been paid approximately 30% below the world market price for the raw products from our oil sands. One reason may be that there are only two or three nations that can purchase our product: the U.S., China, and maybe India. If members think that any of those countries would actually pay us the world market price, we will be sadly disappointed.
The path chosen by the previous government did not produce the desired results: a resilient and flexible economy where we earn a good price for our product because we have a host of customers wanting to purchase our exports and that is the challenge today. We need—
