It's a wonderful question, and thank you for the opportunity to address it.
I think there is a real risk that we are going to have the surplus disappear. I think this government's goal is to cut the problem off at the source and make the surplus disappear. Two budgets ago the lion's share of the surplus went to tax cuts. This time, about $7 billion of a $35 billion bag over the next three years went to tax cuts and $15.2 billion went to debt reduction. I submit to you, the $22 billion this government has paid down in debt reduction over the last two years could be used to make a down payment on the $60 billion to $120 billion infrastructure deficit. It is absolute, utter folly to be paying down debt at this stage in our country's history when we have made such progress on debt-to-GDP reduction and it will continue to come down because of growth in the economy when we are facing such infrastructure deficit.
This is the time to roll over debt that is coming up, when you have a 40-year low rate in terms of interest rates. You are able to lever capitalization at a rate that no subsidiary level of government can do. This is the time when we need to get the money to invest. Instead, this government, and the preceding government, put a lot of emphasis on debt reduction as a way of soaking up the surplus. In fact, this government's call to do the tax-back guarantee, that any reduction in debt charges, because of debt paydown, go to further tax cuts, strikes me as a squandered opportunity to rebuild, not only the nation but—It's not even nation-building; it's what every citizen needs in every corner of the country, whether you live in Quebec or in the Northwest Territories. You need access to housing, you need access to roads, you need access to utilities and clean water. These are fundamentals.
It raises the question, what is the federal government there to guarantee? In what sense are we all Canadians, from coast to coast to coast, where we can rely on certain basics? It strikes me, just from a purely hard infrastructure point of view, that this is a squandered opportunity. From some of the evocative things that you're talking about, like fighting poverty, we know poverty isn't about income. We know poverty is about access to opportunity.
Thank you.