Mr. Speaker, I am an accountant by trade and economics is my forte. If what the hon. member is saying represents his party's position, then we are in a real bad turn. We are going to go into a deficit because they do not know economics at all.
In good economic times, if we cannot balance the budget, if we keep on giving eight consecutive deficits, how can we do anything in bad economic times? The economy that the Liberals inherited was devastated. We were called a third world country, a basket case. If the Conservatives were such good economic managers, why could they not turn the ship around?
We inherited $42 billion in deficit, $500 billion in debt and we were able to manage. We also gave the Conservatives $13 billion in surplus. They cannot beat that record and we do not want the country to go into deficit again.