Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question. Before answering, I must say that I appreciate and understand your neutrality. In my enthusiasm, when reflecting on the role played by my colleague for Broadview-Greenwood, I used his first name in a friendly way. I am sorry and I apologize for doing so. As you know, we sometimes get into heated arguments in this House, and I think that we all understand what happened.
As for my colleague's comments, I believe that the budget is very well balanced. Based on what we read in the newspapers, I think that all issues relating to the debt and all efforts made to create jobs so that Canadians feel useful were put in balance. Let us not forget that when we started developing our vision and our program, the debt was already at $32.6 billion. And when we took office, we discovered that it had grown to $45 or $46 billion. Consequently, we had to make some adjustments. Yet
we still found ways to ensure that the basic commitments would be taken into account and be fulfilled. We, the Liberal Party, stick to our word.
In these very difficult and trying economic times our Minister of Finance and all our other ministers found mechanisms to be creative, to be forward looking to answer some of the serious problems facing our society given the economic situation in which we find ourselves.
We have not been able to fulfil every commitment at this moment. The financial commitments in our policy book have been fulfilled, but there are others and time will tell. Consultations will take place. I hope members will participate and share with us some of the more creative ideas they may have.