Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to ask a question. It is absolutely amazing that the hon. member does not understand how it happened. It is really very simple how it happened. If the government spends more than it takes in it will end up in a deficit situation. If the government keeps doing that every year, time and time again, the answer is that the debt gets larger and larger.
The member then makes the comment that perhaps since all the other nations are in that situation Canada would be in that situation too. This reminds me a little bit of a farmer who says: "Just because my neighbour drove his tractor into the ditch I should too". That does not make any kind of sense at all.
I suggest to the hon. member that the way this happened was that governments spent more than they took in. When are we going to be independent and responsible to the taxpayers?