Mr. Speaker, I think the parliamentary secretary should go back to the Royal Bank the way he is starting to count nowadays. He could take some lessons from the new president of the Royal Bank, Mr. Nixon.
Of the $26 billion that the parliamentary secretary is referring to, some $24 billion was committed in previous budgets. The extra stimulus, or the maximum in this budget, is $2 billion. We have about $1 billion or less in terms of new programs. We have a few other things that were thrown in there, but very little new stimulus.
Even the infrastructure program that they are talking about, which might have $2 billion, and I repeat might have, is dependent on there being a surplus in the next fiscal year. It is not even a line item.
I know you cannot see this far, Mr. Speaker, but when we come across the infrastructure program here in the budget there is nothing listed at all. There is no line item in the next fiscal year or the fiscal year after that. It is the same with the Africa fund of $500 million. The government members say in both cases that there will be money there if there is a surplus.
In terms of the deficit, I just do not believe it. We could have spent an extra $10 billion in this budget. The government spent an extra $2 billion or $2.5 billion. It could have been $10 billion of new stimulus without going into deficit, because part of that stimulus would come back to the federal government in increased taxes. More important, the Minister of Finance has always overestimated the deficit and underestimated surpluses and he is doing the same thing here. In fact in the last seven years he has been out by $75 billion in terms of his mathematics. The minister across the way cannot count. Members opposite have no imagination. We have missed an opportunity in this budget to create jobs and to stand up for the Canadian people.