Mr. Speaker, in the excitement of Diana Krall, who is from Nanaimo, recently receiving those awards, perhaps the member has lost sight of some of the major elements of the budget. I can understand that because I am equally proud of what she has accomplished.
First, with this budget, the Minister of Finance has continued the work previously done and has continued with the policy of putting in the contingency of $3 billion a year. Also prudence has been built in; $1 billion for the first year, then building to $2 billion. When we get to the years three, four and five there will be a flexibility of some $5 billion.
The surpluses are based on consensus view of economists on the growth that will occur in Canada. Those economists are looking at the scenarios in the U.S. economy. The consensus view takes out the economists who say that the growth will be very high and it eliminates the views of those economist who indicate the economy will perform at a lower rate. Therefore it is a consensus view taking into account the performance of the U.S. economy with a lot of prudence built into the budget.