I don't want to dwell on their failure to accomplish much. I'd rather do it this way. We've been the government for ten months. Through the hard work of the President of the Treasury Board and other ministers, we've already found savings of $1 billion for this year in expenses, and another $1 billion for next year. This is in a time when we're in surplus, but I think there's an important point here. Governments constantly have to be looking for efficiencies and savings and reallocating funds to priorities. That's not something you just do when times are tough; we have to do that all the time. In that way, we're being proper stewards of taxpayers' money. We're taking care with taxpayers' money, which is their legitimate expectation of government.
On November 23rd, 2006. See this statement in context.