Mr. Speaker, the former head of the Economic Council of Canada, John Deutsch, used to have trouble getting Mr. Trudeau to take the debt and deficit seriously. I wonder if Mr. Trudeau passed the virus on to the current Prime Minister.
The only way Mr. Deutsch could get Trudeau to take public finance seriously was to somehow link it to the Quebec or unity issue. Perhaps we can awaken the Prime Minister's interest in the issue by pointing to a recent CROP poll which said that 80 per cent of Quebecers believed the government should come to grips with real deficit reduction. This is something Quebecers have in common with other Canadians.
If the Prime Minister is groping for actions to unite the country, why does he not personally commit his government to balancing the federal budget before the end of his mandate? I ask him not to give us a 3 per cent answer.