As usual, Mr. Speaker, the insights of my colleague from Cariboo—Prince George are incisive on this point.
Let me point out what happens when one departs from one's budget as radically as the Prime Minister has from his. I have tabled a number of budgets, each in the multi-billions of dollars, and I know what it is to budget for the ship of state, whether it is the federal or provincial ship of state.
We can compare it to a large tanker out on the ocean. It takes a lot to turn it, and once we start to turn it just a few degrees it does not seem like much at the start, but the shift becomes monumental. The effects can be devastating when that ship of state runs aground on the rocky shores of bad planning. The environmental spill of poor financial planning wreaks havoc on the environment in which we live. The federal ship of state is headed for the rocky shoals because the person at the helm, in a panic, is starting to turn the wheel. That becomes devastating.
There is a case in point here. The member from Cariboo—Prince George has pointed out something interesting. In 22 days, the Prime Minister has blown a $23 billion hole in the budget. That is over $1.1 billion a day in announced spending. I heard one Liberal say last night that it was not $1.1 billion a day but only $1 billion a day. Let me note that a billion dollars a day is a lot of money.
As a provincial finance minister, I sat around the financial table with the present Prime Minister when he was the finance minister. We sat around that planning table with other provincial finance ministers and territorial ministers. The current Prime Minister was sitting at the head of that table as federal finance minister. When we asked for more funding for health care, for instance, funding which he had taken away from the provinces, he would say, “We cannot change the budget. We cannot do that”.
I can remember him saying that one could not, just because of pressure, announce a $1 billion or $2 billion shift in the budget, but because of pressure he himself has now announced a $23 billion change.
I have a final point in terms of my observations from around the finance ministers table. When we used to question him about provincial funds, and we have a variety of them, he knew every dollar amount. He knew how they flowed and to whom they flowed. If he did not have the answer right then, he would go to his officials sitting beside him.
Thus, for him to say today that he does not know anything about that sponsorship fund when he presided over it for 10 years is a terrible stretch of credibility. It undermines the whole budget process that we are looking at today.