Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has the unfortunate habit of underestimating government surpluses in order to make his life easier and avoid having to justify his budget choices to parliament and his own caucus.
Will the Minister of Finance confirm that, for the first five months of the current fiscal year, his department's figures establish the accumulated surplus at $11.1 billion, whereas, for the next seven months, the most pessimistic scenarios predict an additional $2.5 billion, for a total of $13.6 billion in manoeuvring room?