Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Certainly it is always a pleasure to have you here and to get the updates.
When the budget was recently released I looked at the 2009 budget, and at that time, of course, we were heading into a global recession and were looking at stimulus spending. It was certainly indicated we were going to have short-term stimulus spending. In two years, the 2009 budget was saying, we were going to get back to a balanced budget. I think it was looking at 2014-15.
In essence, when I looked at the most recent budget it looked as if we had been following the plan in a pretty effective manner. Certainly I recognize there have been lots of storms and buffeting along the way and lots of changes in the forecast. So I'm really pleased to see that you're looking at the improvement and also the revision and expectations for real GDP growth in 2012 to 2.4% holding steady.
Certainly there are people who have said we need to continue with deficit spending. So at this point could you talk about the importance of a balanced budget and what the results for Canada and other western countries will be if they don't address their fiscal imbalances and continue to engage in a prolonged period of deficit spending without moving toward balanced budgets?
Could you perhaps look at how Canada is doing and where we're going and also talk briefly about some of the other countries in the G-8, in terms of how effectively they're moving back toward their targets?