Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's always interesting to have the Parliamentary Budget Officer here, and of course it's always interesting to hear my Liberal colleagues waxing poetic on nostalgia and how they think about those times when they were in control of the budget of this country. I can tell you that the provinces, territories, and municipalities of this country certainly don't look back with nostalgia at the $25 billion in unilateral cuts to health, education, and social services. They certainly don't look back at that and say, “Wow, I wish we could return to that type of budgeting.” I can't imagine that our military, after 10 years of misery under your government, looks back and waxes poetic on nostalgia and how beautiful it was when you were in control of them. I know Canadians, when they check their pocketbooks, certainly don't look back and say, “Oh, that was a great time for us. We should go back to that.” That's when your government was overtaxing them and stealing millions of dollars in sponsorship scandals.
I guess the only people who actually look back with nostalgia are you and the members of your cabinet who were entitled to their entitlements for so long and are now desperate to return to the time when the entitlement fairy would swoop over this place and allow Liberals to extract all those entitlements.
Mr. Page, there are a couple of things that bother me. You would agree with me that somebody could benefit from advance knowledge of what's in a budget. Would you agree with that?