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For over 20 years, the federal and provincial governments have made enormous efforts employing a variety of approaches in an attempt to stimulate Montreal's economy.

We have accepted there is a big role for government to create a framework where businesses can grow in all parts of the country.

What Canada has to do is to have a government connected to the priorities of the people of which it is elected to serve. Those priorities include ensuring medicare is sustainable, support for the military, and tax and justice systems that work.

So our focus has to be on the things that we can control, which is to take the necessary measures working with Congress to ensure that our economy grows, that we create jobs.

The federal government's role is to establish a process whereby industry can pitch a project, and Canadians can be reassured that this project is worth the risk. That's at the heart of governments granting permits and communities granting permission. People understand we do need economic growth. We do need natural resource projects.

Our job as a government is to start with the great underpinnings of our current economic growth - particularly defence and mining - and build on these.

We believe that the government has an important role to create the conditions that promote entrepreneurship, upward mobility, and individual responsibility.

We're focused on doing the things that make the economy perform well, and as you do that, reduce deficits, for one, very important; secondly, keep growth rates high, very important.

It's not government that creates jobs; it's small business. Our job is to make sure they have the access to capital, the access to contracting opportunities, and the help, advice and mentoring that they need to go out and be successful.

We're always flexible and pragmatic... It's always important to watch the unemployment rate and to make sure that we can keep most Canadians working. We were successful in that back in 2008-09.