I'm very pleased to be here today to speak.
I'm glad you have your earpiece in, Mr. Turnbull, because I wouldn't want you to miss anything I have to say. I know you're eagerly waiting with bated breath and much anticipation to hear the wisdom that I'm about to impart upon you, sir.
I'm actually very pleased to be here and to have an opportunity to speak about this. Since you deemed relevant, Madam Chair, the comments Mr. Turnbull made in his latest intervention on this, I'll weigh in on some of the comments that he made, given that they're deemed relevant.
Madam Chair, the 24 hours that you mentioned may seem like a long period of time to Canadians who are watching this and to a lot of you who have been here from the onset and have been sitting here for 24 hours. I get that. I completely understand your frustration at not being able to get through this in 24 hours.
I am sure you would also agree—as most Canadians and particularly most parliamentarians in a moment of clarity would agree—that the government taking some seven months after being elected on April 28 to produce a budget is a lot longer than 24 hours. The government took an exorbitant amount of time to produce a budget. In fact, it produced one that was presented seven months after it had started spending the money—