Mr. Speaker, I may not be as old as the hon. member but I can tell him that with the exception of one year the government's spending as a percentage of our GDP is the lowest that it has been in my lifetime.
We do not really have a spending problem when we look at it that way. In fact, the controls that we have had in spending over the last number of years have resulted in us being the only G-7 country that continues to run a surplus at a time when others, including our neighbours to the south, have turned surpluses into deficits. He ought to be applauding us.