He also made the extraordinary assertion that a restrictive immigration policy would help downtrodden illegal immigrants, such as the Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers.
Canadians are starting to debate whether the main aim of policy towards the north should be the assertion of sovereignty, and thus spending big money on military kit, or trying to improve the dire social conditions in which people live there, as many northerners would like.
Regardless of policy decisions made since 2008, considerable evidence supports the assertion that the slow recovery can be blamed at least partly on the fact that the recession was caused by a financial crisis.