Finance committee  Uncertainty is bad.

Finance committee  Mr. Blaikie, I would just say that the investment needed is so great that you can't do it unless it's the government plus business and civil society. There's no other way to do it. We are at a crucial point right now, because people are doing their business plans out for 10 years.

Finance committee  Anne, you can go first.

Finance committee  I always like to say that Canada's future prosperity goes through rural communities, quite frankly, and that's a very real situation. We have been able to put what we call a rural lens on some of the scorecard metrics we actually measure, and the importance of that is exactly what you said: making sure we understand what's happening in rural communities.

Finance committee  I'd only add that we developed these metrics, MP, between August and October 2021, and that was prior to any further announcements that the government made. We made the decision that these metrics we put together in 2021 are to be frozen in time, because that allows us to measure them year on year.

Finance committee  In conclusion, Mr. Chair—and thank you for your time—it's important to understand how indigenous Canadians' lives are impacted as well. Policies and projects are being put into place, and we need to make sure that indigenous communities are part of the equation. I know there's a lot of discussion in the government right now with respect to loan guarantees for indigenous people in these large resource projects.

Finance committee  Thank you, Anne. The scorecard is an important tool for governments and for people in general to see where the country is going on important policy areas and basically where we need to go as well. Where are we today? The pandemic created new challenges. It disproportionately impacted lower-income Canadians.