Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that, under the existing legislation and accounting rules, his government had no choice but to apply the whole $9.1 billion surplus to the debt. That is not true.
Indeed, the Auditor General has said there is no law or accounting rule that says we must apply the whole surplus to the debt.
Instead of continuing to mislead the public, will the Minister of Finance admit that the government had other options in terms of the use that it could make of the surpluses, but preferred to put all the money on the debt? I defy the minister to say otherwise.