Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, for joining us today.
Before I get to my first question, I just want to address two things. One is the very thoughtful comments by Mr. Blaikie about your visiting this committee. I put it on record that you have visited us at least four times during this Parliament and you've always shown up for every single BIA. I think it's important for Canadians to be reminded of that.
The other thing I want to address is a comment by Mr. Hallan about out-of-control spending. I think sometimes because so much happens in our lives, we have short memories, but we have come out of an unprecedented global pandemic. When we came out of it, we had an extraordinarily changed geopolitical situation, and I will tell you and remind Canadians that our government absolutely spent a large amount of money. We did that because we had to help Canadians get through COVID. The spending has saved lives, the spending has saved livelihoods, the spending has saved businesses and it's provided a foundation from which our economy has pivoted. We have pivoted and this is why, at this moment, we do have the best debt-to-GDP ratio of the G7 countries, and we've had more than a full recovery of jobs and continue to maintain a AAA credit rating among other things.
I just wanted to put that on the record.
I'll go to my first question. In my riding of Davenport, as is the case in many of our ridings, there are a number of advocacy groups, so I have a huge contingent—and I'm one of them by the way—of climate activists and people who really want our government to move as quickly as possible to achieving our Paris Agreement targets and net zero by 2050.
I also have an equally important and active group who are very passionate about making sure that we continue to have good jobs and a strong economy, because they care not only about themselves, but also about their kids and that those kids in turn will have a strong future.
Can you explain to the residents of Davenport why it's important for us to invest in the clean economy with such substantial investments via the tax credits announced in federal budget 2023, what it means for the Canadian economy moving forward and how that will help us achieve our net zero by 2050 target?