Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of the hon. member, as well as the member before him. As I listened, it was rather entertaining and amusing to see the limits that that party would go to try to find some glimmer of political hope in what has been for it a very dim period, particularly when it went to the length of saying that we were in a Liberal recession. I did not hear the Alliance members say that it was a republican recession in the U.S. or that some other party was causing a global slowdown.
In trying to gain some political advantage for themselves, the Alliance members are trying to suggest that this global slowdown is somehow connected to the government party. That is really stretching it. That clearly shows they are not listening to people, the way the government is. In fact, that is the way the budget is being prepared, by listening to Canadians, by consulting them and by hearing from them.
Over the past few weeks we have heard endless questions and statements from the Alliance in the House calling for tax cuts and spending, the kind of things that would put us into a deep deficit. However, I would ask the hon. member this. If he calls it a Liberal recession here, what does he call it in the U.S. and in the rest of the world?