Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your statement today.
I want to start with your focus on the surplus going to the debt. I probably would concur with you in terms of the Liberal record on this front; however, it's hard to really tell the difference, in that both the Liberal government before you and now your government seem to be talking in a very unbalanced way of putting so much against the debt that it leaves very little flexibility. You've given us an all-or-nothing plan that I don't think leaves us any flexibility, yet just a few months ago you were quite happy to announce the results of what we had been able to negotiate with the Liberal government, that being the NDP's budget for money in housing, transit, and environment. In effect, your colleagues were delighted over the course of this last month to announce these and talk about them as if they were their own initiatives.
With your approach, where do we get the flexibility to do that kind of progressive initiative, to put some of the money in a balanced way into progress and productivity?