:
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
[Translation]
Thank you, committee members.
[English]
I had a chance to be here last October when we had a round table on international trade, and I alluded at that time to the fact that we were publishing a fairly substantive report. We're now two-thirds of the way through the final publication. I thought I would start by talking a bit about the context and volume one. My colleague Gilles Rhéaume will speak to the second volume, dealing with resources.
The report is called Mission Possible: Sustainable Prosperity for Canada, a huge topic. We've found that the only way we could deal with it would be to divide it into three clusters: one dealing with Canada's place in globalization; one dealing with the resource boom and how we can capitalize on the spectacular rise in resource prices that we're experiencing right now; and the third on cities. Our president, Anne Golden, will be presenting that next week. In fact, she'll be giving a speech at the Toronto Board of Trade releasing the third volume.
The first volume is called Mission Possible: Stellar Canadian Performance in the Global Economy. It really addresses the question of national drift, setting the facts out, and then setting out elements of a strategy to create sustainable prosperity for Canada. I'll just spend a couple of minutes on the core hypothesis.
The evidence is very clear. Economists are almost unanimous, effectively unanimous, that Canada right now is a nation that's drifting. It's very hard to see. It's almost imperceptible. But the evidence is clear, and I'll give you a couple of examples.
On per capita income, we've slid from fifth to tenth place in the OECD over the last 15 years. That's a very slow slide, but you can see it. In terms of productivity performance, over the last five, ten, twenty years, we've slid slowly towards the back of the class.
We're now in the bottom third of OECD countries, the rich industrial countries, in terms of annual productivity growth rates. When we compare ourselves to the United States, we now find ourselves at about 83% of U.S. levels of productivity. Of course, that translates into having a smaller automobile in your driveway. The analogy I use is you have a Corolla rather than a Lexus in your driveway.
Where it really matters of course is because we won't have the capacity.... And that's not a free ad for Toyota, by the way. It really translates into whether we can pay for the social goods, the health care system we want, the education system we want, and the retirements we all want as we get older. What's driving that? We see two major forces. One is a combination of global demographics, aging populations in the industrial world, in Canada, and countries like Japan and Italy, combined with young populations and changed economic policies in the emerging world.
All of a sudden, countries like China, India, and Brazil have become competitors and much stronger forces within the global economy. I think in Maclean's magazine, I was quoted as calling it “a shift in the tectonic plates” of the global economy. That's a good analogy, because you can see the major structural forces that are creating friction but are also creating a new world where Asia, in particular, will be a pole of economic growth for the world economy.
The other major force we see is the changing alignment of how international trade occurs today. I've given it an expression, “integrative trade”,
[Translation]
integrative trade.
[English]
Trade today is driven by investment. More and more, it's business using foreign direct investment to reposition parts of their supply chain around the world. As we've dropped trade barriers over the last 25 years, businesses are now able to reposition elements of their production anywhere in the world where it makes the most sense, and they use foreign investment to do that. Canadian companies have done that to a certain degree, but it really is a question of whether we're keeping pace with the global dynamics.
Our report then goes into a number of near-term factors we're going to have to face. We talk about sustainability. In fact, sustainability, the balancing of the environment and the economy, is a theme that passes through all three volumes. I know that Gilles has spent quite some time looking at sustainable practices in the resource industry.
We talk about global imbalances. The United States, in particular, has a massive external deficit equal to about $850 billion annually, which means that it needs to attract equally massive savings from the rest of the world to keep itself aligned. Will there be a shock at some point where the United States is brought back into line?
We talk about the Doha Round, which is stalled right now, and whether we can find the political means to get Doha moving again before the U.S. President's negotiating mandate expires in July of this year. If we don't, we are on the front line of a new Congress in the United States that we fear will be protectionist. Because Canada has a trade surplus, we could well be on the front lines of an adjustment in American attitudes.
Lastly, we talk about emerging markets, and the competition they're presenting. China is now, in some months, a bigger exporter to the United States than Canada is; there's been one month so far. But two or three years down the road that will become a standard centred pattern where we're slowly being displaced by countries like China in the U.S. market.
But the flip side is there's tremendous opportunity in those markets. For the first time there's a middle class of hundreds of millions of people who have purchasing power and the ability to buy things that we produce and we manufacture.
So how do we actually take advantage of the structural changes going on in China, India, Brazil, and 150 other countries? The balance of the volume then sets out five strategies that we think are critical to creating sustainable wealth within Canada. I'll go through those very quickly.
First is the need to embrace productivity and competitiveness as a national priority, because that's where wealth creation should come from. This is the smartest form of growth: to boost productivity, output per worker. It's not about working harder; it's all about working smarter, finding better ways to combine innovation, technology, creativity, to boost wealth within Canada.
We then drill into that framework and address a second theme, which I think is arguably the most powerful in the volume, and the theme we've selected is to create a single Canadian market. Our research, through the many studies we did under the Canada Project, identified barriers to commerce at the provincial boundaries, misalignment of regulation between the federal and provincial governments, misalignment even within levels of government, barriers to competition, lack of innovation in our industry and in government policy, barriers to tax, and infrastructure. So there's a whole array of things that we've done to ourselves to render ourselves less competitive in the world. And you cannot be competitive in a modern global economy unless your firms are able to compete effectively at home, by reaching a national market. So that's a powerful message. I'd be happy to talk about it at length.
The third theme for us is to address the aging labour force: find ways to encourage more immigrants and integrate them faster into our workforce, and incent older workers to stay longer. Our whole pension system and employment system was designed for a time of surplus labour, but the rules have completely changed. We're now at a point of labour shortage, and if you live in western Canada, represent constituencies out there, you know exactly what I mean. But that's even emerging in central Canada and Atlantic Canada. There are now skill shortages across our economy. So how will we find ways to address that? We think it's through smarter immigration policy, smarter investment in education, focusing on post-secondary and skill development, and finding ways to keep older workers attached longer.
The fourth strategy for us comes directly to the issue of this committee, which is international trade and investment, and the need to have a comprehensive, well-articulated, international trade and investment strategy going forward. We'll be quite happy to talk about that in some detail. We've looked at things like reducing barriers to foreign investment, strengthening the border to make it more seamless, so that foreign investors don't see the border as a barrier to functioning within North America, issues such as growing the services exports within our economy. The balkanization of our national economy makes it very hard for services exporters to actually get out there and compete, because they don't have to compete hard enough at home to really be at a competitive level internationally.
Ultimately, it comes back to making trade and investment a centrepiece of our national productivity strategy, having a well-articulated plan, which means Canada assuming a leading role, again, within the WTO negotiations. We've allowed ourselves to be pushed, really, to the side. We've become policy-takers rather than policy-makers, we believe, at the WTO. We have to reposition ourselves again.
But even as that is occurring, we know there's a risk that Doha will not proceed for two or three or five years, and we can't sit idle in the interim period. So we have to think about deepening our relationship with the United States within NAFTA, both broadening it to expand its coverage and dealing with very difficult things like non-tariff barriers, the north-south alignment between Canada and the United States, and then pursuing other regional and bilateral deals where there's really great potential, and thinking about engaging countries like China and India much more deeply on trade.
The last of the five strategies in volume one is around foreign policy. We argue that we really need to think about foreign policy as yet another part of a national productivity strategy that reinforces our trade investment and all the other elements. Our view is that our foreign policy really needs to proceed along two main tracks. Track number one is, obviously, with the United States, our most important relationship by far, something we have to think about every day, but we're not recommending or advising a big bang solution, in terms of the our relationship with the United States. It's more a matter of practical, day-to-day, rules-based engagement with the United States, seeing that they're our greatest friends and allies, but also looking after our own interests in that relationship.
The second track that we believe in very strongly is the need to embrace the emerging markets as a core piece of our foreign policy—China, India, Brazil, and many others—because they are the second pole of economic growth within the world economy, and by deeper engagement in our foreign policy we can have a better articulated trade and investment policy towards those countries.
We cover all of that in a report of about 130 pages. It's hard to get through, frankly. I've read every word multiple times, and it takes about seven hours, if you have the patience. But we'll be putting out an executive summary next week of about 20 pages, which will articulate that more effectively.
Gilles, do you want to add a few words about your volume now?
Last week we released our second volume of the Canada Project, called Mission Possible, a Canadian Resources Strategy for the Boom and Beyond. We focused on the rising global demand for natural resources, which comes primarily from Asia, and basically the fast pace in terms of economic growth in China and India. We have a population in China, with respect to the middle class, of 200 million at the moment. We're looking at it rising to 400 million by 2010.
In India they have a middle class of about 90 million, and growing fast. All these people have higher incomes, and they are looking for things that basically we wouldn't think they would purchase in the past, including motor vehicles, electric appliances, housing, the various gadgets that we are used to. All of that requires the natural resources and energy.
There are some opportunities also within North America with what we are seeing in terms of long-term trends, demographic growth, and economic growth, but to a lesser extent. When we looked at that, we looked at four key sectors: forest products, agri-foods, mining, and energy. Each has important opportunities, but also major challenges.
I'll just briefly say a few words on each one.
[Translation]
The major challenge in forest products is maintaining global competitiveness. Our plants, particularly pulp and paper plants, are small and old compared to those elsewhere in the world. Some competitors didn't previously exist, such as Brazil, Chile and New Zealand. All that puts a lot of pressure on our Canadian producers. They're also dealing with costs that are growing faster that those of other countries. The strategy is therefore to renew the forest sector.
The biggest challenge in the agricultural sector is opening global markets. My colleague Glen mentioned that our tariff barriers were high. The Doha Round is not progressing. If we want opportunities in the agricultural sector, we really must have an aggressive strategy for liberalizing agricultural trade. We also have to raise the innovation level in our agricultural sector.
[English]
When we turn to mining, one critical thing is that there are great opportunities, but our reserves are declining. We need to boost our exploration activity to an extent that we have never seen before so that we can open new mines. There are a number of things we recommend to bring that forward. On the energy side, we have vast energy resources. The greatest challenges that we are seeing have to do with the environment, and dealing with those environmental issues.
What we are suggesting is that there is an opportunity for Canada to basically become a clean energy superpower. I emphasize the word “clean”, which means a dual strategy of developing that resource, but also developing environmental technologies.
That's basically in terms of the four sectors. There are two common themes that come out of it. One has to do with labour shortages. When we look at these resource sectors, the workforce on average is older than what we are seeing in other sectors. The shortage that Glen alluded to is coming faster than what we are seeing in other sectors, and we are already seeing it on the energy side.
The second major theme that crosses everything in terms of all the resource sectors has to do with the regulatory complexity, the hurdles these companies have to go through to get projects approved, and at a time when we have a boom that will not last forever. We're seeing this boom that will exist for maybe 10, 15, 20 years. Then it's certainly going to slow down, if not decline.
We are looking at that opportunity, which is not only a time-limited offer, but it is an offer that we won't see repeated for generations to come, looking at trends and demographics that we are seeing worldwide. This is a short-term opportunity where we can benefit, and we have to meet the challenges that we have identified in our volume.
:
All right, let me take a step back and say that a well-articulated trade policy basically has three pieces. One, your business has to be ready to go and compete internationally, and that's why we put so much weight on the concept of a single market in Canada, ending the balkanization and allowing our firms to achieve optimum scale here so they really have that sharp edge that's needed to compete internationally.
The second piece is about market access, and that's what international trade negotiation is all about. Right now we can see Doha drifting. We've gone 13 years with NAFTA, and, as we articulated in our report, we think NAFTA has effectively matured. There's no more dynamic energy coming out of NAFTA. Firms are not restructuring any more, so there's a lot of capacity there to both broaden the coverage of NAFTA by including things like services in much more detail, and also deepen it through much greater effort around harmonization. Maybe that's the wrong word. Harmonization is a little bit scary sometimes, politically, but I think we can say alignment of regulatory standards and processes without giving up any of our sovereignty. Often we have slightly different standards that achieve exactly the same end, so we need to find ways to penetrate more deeply with the United States in the integration of North America, and then pursue other markets.
The third piece you're talking about is on the trade investment promotion side, but that is basically the sales force of a company. It's perfectly fine to talk about diversification and whether we have the right resources in place for sales, but we want to make sure that we have all three pieces in place and that we are actually building companies that are going to be competitive internationally, which can go out there and win market share based upon high-quality products and price, and the issue of market access.
When it comes to diversification, we all want to be more diversified, but you can't push a string, and without having these first two pieces, without having more active market access negotiations, let's say, bilaterally, regionally, multilaterally, there's really only so much you can do by mobilizing more resources in the field. I would argue strongly that you really have to look at all three pieces.
Clearly, 83% of our exports go to the United States, and our trade, frankly, with other parts of the world has not grown for some time now. It's actually fallen considerably with Japan, so arguing for more investment in trade development officers, let's say, on the ground with Japan without cracking the nut of market access with the Japanese is probably not going to be a very efficient use of resources.
It is the same thing with Europe and the same thing with many other markets. I would like to put at least as much weight on the export and investment readiness piece and the market access piece as I would on the number of trade commissioners in the field.
Good morning, gentlemen. I'm pleased to meet you. I've often heard about the Conference Board, especially when I was dealing with oil. Let's say I haven't always been a believer, but I'm going to show some gratitude for the work you've done in Volume I. I admit I haven't read Volume II yet.
You mainly talk about natural resources. We had been promised a kind of summary in French. I read it in English, but I required help on certain aspects.
The international trade policy that Canada should adopt obviously concerns a number of virtually incalculable factors. Like some of my colleagues opposite, you advocate complete or nearly complete liberalization of markets, by eliminating supply management in Quebec, among other things, because you assume that certain protectionist measures here undermine the productivity of our manufacturers and so on.
So the four factors you mentioned earlier, productivity, a single Canadian market, trade policies versus investment and the aging population, are obviously based on productivity. We know this is an obligation, because we have to respond to quite fierce competition around the world in order to generate wealth.
I only want to make a brief digression and talk about the philosophy of progression, market development and economic growth versus demographic growth. I don't know what excuse is used to explain one or the other — demographic or economic growth. It's said that we lack people; we must make them, we must invent them. Is that in order to increase productivity or consumption? There will be limits at some point. There is China, whose population is 1.4 billion inhabitants, and there are other, small countries. So there's no comparison on consumption.
Today we're still aiming to increase wealth by increasing consumption, until we hit the wall. Technically, a number of countries have hit a wall, including Canada. It's said that the 1980s were harmful for productivity. Instead of replacing 100 employees with a modern robotic machine, we should have given one to each employee. Productivity might have increased as a result.
What actual recommendations are you making to the Canadian government? What path will it take so that Canada really becomes a competitor with time? If we die before we become productive, we won't be any further ahead. What do you recommend in the short term?
:
I invented the phrasing “integrative trade” because I was trying to find a simple brand that people could get their heads around and really understand. That reflects what's happened with liberalization of trade all the way back to the end of the Second World War. There has been steady, step-by-step progress. The tariff barriers have come down. That's allowed businesses to reposition parts of their production around the world because they don't face the same added costs of manufacturing something in one country and then shipping it to another. And that's being driven by foreign investment. This is a phenomenon you see in Canada, and you can actually trace it. For example, in looking at the foreign share of our exports--it's a hard concept--I'll flip it around: the Canadian content of our exports has actually fallen very progressively year after year, until recently, for a long period of time. I think in 1990 the Canadian content of our exports in aggregate was about 70% or 71%. Now it's about 65%.
Think about the auto industry. The auto industry is probably the most striking example, because it is arguably one of the most, if not the most, globally integrated industries in the world. In Canada, we make machine tools, which are then shipped to the United States to make parts, which are then shipped back to Canada to make bigger parts, which are then shipped back to the United States. Pieces of a car can cross the border apparently as many as seven times before the end product is made.
Of course, we're making more than our fair share of end products in Canada. We have a clear advantage in final fabrication in Canada. We're a net exporter of automobiles by about 1.6 million a year. So that's a clear example of where the auto companies fit within an integrated North America.
We've had the Auto Pact since 1965. We chose quite deliberately, as a trade policy way back then, to try to integrate ourselves into the North American economy. And they use that repositioning of pieces of their whole production chain within North America to create their greatest possible advantage. That's the most striking example of the integrated trade concept.
Of course, you have to invest on both sides of the line to do that. You may draw parts in from other countries. You might make seat cushions or pieces of glass in Brazil or in Poland and fit it into your supply chain. That is the new trade paradigm.
When I went to grad school--I did my undergrad at the University of Manitoba many years ago--we were taught about trade in end goods. One country was making cotton and one country was making shoes and you traded them. You traded based on comparative advantage, which was relative efficiencies. Modern trade is all about trade in inputs. Something like 40% of all global trade now is traded within companies, intra-firm trade, and that's because companies all around the world are looking to gain their competitive advantage by putting pieces of their supply chain wherever it makes the most sense.
Our thinking, as a country that has resources, but what we really have is brain power, is that we want to position ourselves at the end of the supply chain where we can make the most money by using our brain power. So the way forward is we think about a trade policy. It's wonderful to export coal and unfinished logs, but it's far better to export brain power and to invest in brain power. And that's why so much of our report goes back to human capital, investing more in our education system.
As you think about trade investment policy, you really have to take all the pieces on board and think about how to make the national economy as competitive as possible and where to make the right kinds of investments going forward.
One of the things I liked in Advantage Canada, but I also liked in the Liberal statement a year earlier--that's because the Conference Board doesn't do politics, we try to do policy--was the emphasis on post-secondary education. I think the federal government has a really significant role to play going forward and investing far more in post-secondary education, because human capital is ultimately very portable.
So as you think about trade policy you really do have to think about all the pieces and where you want to fit within those supply chains.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Before I get to my question, I'd just like to follow up on your comments about supply management and supporting family farms.
I think it's fair to say Canadians haven't seen much support from their federal government, under the previous Liberal government or under the Conservative government. That is indeed the problem we saw with the softwood sellout, that a government was not willing to stand up for Canadian rights.
So the difference between the theory you're putting forward and the practice shows the gulf, I think, between the considerations here in Ottawa and what is actually happening on Main Street. There were thousands of jobs lost because the government wasn't standing up for us on softwood lumber, and potentially, farming communities across the country will be devastated if our government does not stand up for Canadians on the Canadian Wheat Board and supply management.
There will always be pressure on us to be like the Americans, but the point is Canada has to chart its own course. Most Canadians believe profoundly that our institutions need to be supported and that Canadians have the right to chart our own course. That is where I would disagree with some of the comments you've made so far.
I wanted to come back to my question. It's around the sustainability section. There is certainly one element within the report that the NDP has for some time been calling for, and that is significant new investment in education and training. We applaud that you have dealt with that in part in your report.
I went to your sustainability section first, of course, because the environment is, certainly in the public's mind, a major preoccupation, and it's something that is public policy. As people involved in public policy, we have to take consideration of it.
Now, you basically cite the arguments around the environment and sustainability, but there is one interesting comment. You say that Canada needs a well-functioning regulatory system to protect the public interest and the environment and ensure the public safety. I could not agree more. That is a very cogent statement.
However, previously you mentioned the SPP, the security and prosperity partnership, otherwise known as deep integration, where Canada would be essentially giving up our regulatory power to the lower American standards in about 300 different areas. You also mentioned TILMA, which, similar to chapter 11 in NAFTA, provides investor rights that override the public interest when it comes to the environment and public safety and a whole host of other areas.
So I'm wondering how you square what you've recognized--that we need to protect the public interest, we need to protect the environment, we need to ensure public safety--with investment agreements that give rights to investors that override public safety, override the public interest, and override the environment. The TILMA is very controversial in my province, British Columbia, because people are becoming increasingly aware of the details. Essentially, it provides a kind of protection to investors that allows them to override the public interest, as we've seen with chapter 11.
How do you square that contradiction? You've recognized the public interest in the environment, but you've also endorsed investment agreements that override that.
:
Good morning, Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Rhéaume.
First, I wonder whether you're really talking about an integrating type of trade, Mr. Hodgson. I wonder whether it's not a type of trade that excludes certain classes of individuals, whom you've enumerated. It's said that globalization and international trade are helping us withdraw from certain sectors, such as the manufacturing sector, which often enables less educated people to hold jobs.
You also mentioned agriculture and supply management. I have a lot of questions on that subject. I recently attended a seminar by the Union des producteurs agricoles, where I met farmers. You're not unaware that they're going through major difficulties. Agriculture is very much threatened, both in the hog industry — you no doubt heard that on the news recently — and wheat and exports, with regard to U.S. subsidies. People are experiencing major difficulties. I'd also say, with regard to the supply management system, that producers aren't making fortunes either.
At the same time, I was in the United States not long ago and I met with farmers there. They're renegotiating their Farm Bill, the U.S. agricultural legislation. To my great surprise, they told me they were also experiencing financial difficulties, despite the fact that the industry is highly subsidized.
So I believe that agriculture shouldn't be subject to bargaining as is the case in the manufacturing sector, the steel sector and other industrial sectors. I believe that agriculture should be a sovereign field. We should move more toward food sovereignty because food, as you know, is what enables us to live. So I think that detaching ourselves from our agricultural sector represents a major danger.
Coming back to globalization, trade and rural land use, I come from a rural area. What supports our area is agriculture, the manufacturing sector; these are soft sectors. We're thinking about the areas located in the Lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspé and not even that far. I'm from an area located between Trois-Rivières and Montreal. All businesses not established in large cities seem to be having enormous difficulties because the knowledge industry is developing in the large cities. So I'd like to hear what you have to say on that subject.
You also mentioned that there were winners and losers in globalization. We should be able to help the losers, but I believe the current trend is to abandon them. I note, for example, the cuts made to employment insurance, a health system increasingly oriented toward the private sector, the fact that education is leaning toward the private sector as well. So this is a form of exclusion. That's the current trend. We're even withdrawing from our students. There have been cuts to student programs and so on.
I'd like to have your opinion on that subject.
:
Perhaps I'll start, and Gilles can talk in particular about agriculture, because I know you want to.
I think you just touched upon the single hardest question in discussions on globalization, which is how to share the benefits, how to share the proceeds, and how to deal with people who are left behind. It is very interesting.
The Economist magazine, in the most recent edition, has a whole section dealing with winners and losers in globalization, and the challenge of finding public policies that help people get lifted back up, retrained, and supported as they adjust. There is also the fact that in every country touched by globalization--there are only two or three that aren't, and we wouldn't want to live in any of those two or three, like Burma or North Korea--a share of the population is always left behind, and there is the question of coming up with fair and socially just programs to carry those people along, knowing that someone who does not have the basic literacy skills to function in a modern industrial economy probably can't be retrained at 55 to go back to work. As well, there is the fact, the reality, that people who lose well-paying jobs in manufacturing often end up in services, and the real wage goes way down. They're frankly not taking home as much. They're losers. That is the single hardest question.
I think we know as economists that on a net basis, grosso modo, globalization is creating wealth for the world economy and there are more people with higher incomes than there were 25 years ago. That's very clear, but it's equally clear that it's not a perfect equation by any means, and the design of social programs really does matter. Can we re-educate young people so they can develop skills and advance themselves? At what point do you simply put someone on social assistance because they're not capable of adapting to fit the modern economy?
But if I have to choose between greater market openness and greater protection, I know which way I'm going: it's towards greater market openness, because I can see the net gain for the collective, for society.
Do you want to talk particularly about agriculture?
I appreciate the economic theory that you're providing today. Of course, Canadians can't eat a theory.
I want to come back to the issue of the quality of jobs. What Statistics Canada tells us is from 1989 to 2004, and those are the most recent figures available, for the lower 60%--in other words, the first, second, and third quintile...over 60% of working families have actually seen their incomes fall in real terms, and they are actually earning less money now than they were in 1989, before we started these free trade agreements and started to change, to restructure the Canadian economy. The upper middle class has held its own, just barely hanging on, and they basically have kept up with inflation. Then you've seen the wealthiest 20% of Canadians see their incomes absolutely skyrocket.
We're not talking about a theoretical situation where there have been some losers. Most Canadians are worse off than they were in 1989. They're working longer and longer hours. Overtime has gone up, as you know, by almost one-third. We're seeing that most of the jobs created in the economy today--Statistics Canada tells us--are part-time, temporary in nature, with no benefits and no pensions. We also see the quality of jobs being created in the current economic context as being jobs with a lot more precariousness and jobs that don't provide the sorts of family-sustaining incomes that we used to see in Canada.
My first question is around that issue of the quality of jobs. I'm looking through and trying to find a road map within your document that actually points to family-sustaining jobs. I don't see it yet. Perhaps I'm missing it, or perhaps it's in later studies. How do you deal with the fact that we have gone through these various trade agreements and most Canadians are worse off than when we began, even though there generally tends to be, from the corporate sector, a siren call to “let's just do more of the same” and somehow magically it will transform into real, equitable prosperity for all Canadians? I have doubts, because the reality is that on the bottom line, over the most recent figures that we have available since 1989, it hasn't worked. It's failed. That's my first question.
My second question is around foreign investment. We've seen 11,000 takeovers in that 15-year period. That's 11,000, and they were all rubber-stamped. Liberals have rubber-stamped them and Conservatives have rubber-stamped them. When is foreign investment not in Canadians' interests? Again, we're seeing a fall in real incomes for most Canadian families--11,000 takeovers without a single real review.
My third question is coming back to the agricultural sector, the family farms. Countries that have the highest quality-of-life index, the human development index, are countries that support the family farms. Here we have a real push by the Bush administration to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board, although farmers are pushing the government back on that, and to basically give up on supply management. Why should Canada give up on supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board when it serves our farmers very well and helps to support family farms and farming communities across the country?
Those are my three questions. Thank you.