Mr. Speaker, I and my NDP colleagues very much respect every dollar that Canadians earn and pay in taxes, unlike the Liberals, who wasted billions of tax dollars on programs that have had absolutely no results, not to mention the sponsorship scandal, where millions of dollars disappeared, so I hope the member was not giving the NDP lessons.
Even the finance department agrees, asking how often provincial governments have balanced budgets since 1984. The NDP balanced the books 49% of the time, whereas the Liberal Party did so 23% of the time. I want to make that point.
What I was trying to say about the $13 billion surplus that the Liberal Party is boasting about is that it was amassed over the heads of ordinary Canadians and cities and provinces where services were downloaded. Canadians are now facing polluted waters, polluted air and crumbling infrastructure.
Does the member understand a triple bottom line, in that creating a surplus in one area does not balance off in creating an environmental deficit and a social deficit such as those we are facing today in Canada?