Canadians believe in the ethic of common provision and ensuring that those who need help get help. Of course, our health care system is a central Canadian pillar of that, right? We balanced the budget while increasing health care spending 6% every single year. We've maintained the commitment to Canadians not to balance the budget while cutting health care.
Other governments didn't make those choices; we made that choice. That was a commitment that I think is core to our sense of compassion for one another. But better than that, we also helped seniors on fixed incomes by increasing the personal deduction. Taking tens of thousands of low-income Canadians and seniors on fixed incomes off the tax rolls altogether, pension income splitting for seniors, these are things that we've done. Overwhelmingly, the tax benefits and tax relief that we've put in place in Canada have benefited those who needed it the most. Those measures are why I think we are arriving at a time of general economic prosperity—yes, with its challenges.
We've arrived at a balanced budget. We alone in the G-20 have balanced our budget while cutting taxes—