On the debt and deficit question I think we must take a minute to look at how we got in this mess in the first place. As was said, we are doomed to repeat history if we do not pay attention to what has happened. It is true that in the 1970s many of the tax measures of the previous Liberal government did begin to create the inequities that we see and lead to this gap which meant that we began seeing an ever increasing debt.
In the following years subsequent governments and the previous government over the last nine years implemented monetary policies which dealt only with controlling inflation, ignoring the effect on rising unemployment.
They brought in a North American free trade deal and the free trade agreement with the United States which cost Canadians hundreds of thousands of jobs leading again to decreased revenues.
Look at the monetary policy of the past government, the effect of bad trade deals on employment and decreased generation of revenue. It was disappointing that the Liberal government decided once coming into power that it would continue those two regressive monetary and trade solutions.