Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does not seem to understand the simple arithmetic that the size of the federal government today is less than it has been for 50 years.
I could perhaps illuminate history by describing the meeting to which he referred. After the meeting the National Post , which was then in the employ of the Canadian Alliance, pretended I was the only economist to claim the $18 billion deficit. The more neutral Globe and Mail reported on page A-1 that Clément Gignac, chief economist of the National Bank, said exactly the same thing. I was relegated to page A-8. The truth of the matter is that many economists including Clément Gignac believed the Alliance numbers did not add up.