Mr. Speaker, I thank the Prime Minister for his answer. He may be a bit behind in his reading. We tabled in the House a list of $20 billion in spending cuts that could be made over the next three years. Those were our contributions to the solution to that problem.
My supplementary line of inquiry is that one positive signal that the Prime Minister could send to the money markets would be to openly encourage parliamentary committees to reduce rather than simply rubber stamp the spending estimates presented to them.
Could the Prime Minister assure members of the House that if they were to reduce the spending estimates presented to them in committee, the government would accept those reductions and not regard them as an expression of non-confidence in the government's budget?