Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I must say, following my Liberal colleague, I'm a bit perplexed about his line of questioning, given that our government really just followed the wise policy his government initiated in 2000 by lowering corporate taxes, and we've seen the results, both in job growth and revenue growth, from these tables.
I'm curious to ask a couple of broad questions.
Looking at some of the numbers, we see that the federal government posted a budgetary deficit of $26.2 billion in the last fiscal year that we're currently looking at, 2011-12, down from $33.4 billion in the previous year, 2010-11. Over that period, revenues were up 3.34% during the same period from $237 billion to $245 billion, and expenses were up 0.4% from $270 billion to $271 billion. Public debt charges were $31 billion in the 2011-12 fiscal year.
I'm curious to get your opinion on the main reason for decline in the budget deficit over those two years, fiscal year 2010-11 to fiscal year 2011-12.