Mr. Speaker, I would point out to my colleague that broken promises and empty rhetoric do not build nations. Actions build nations.
I would also point out that while the Liberals take credit for balancing the books, a distinguished panel of McGill academics rated previous prime ministers strictly on their economic performance regardless of whether one likes them or not. They rated former prime ministers Trudeau and Chrétien at the bottom of the pile and former prime minister Mulroney at the top because he brought in policies, which the previous federal government between 1993 and last year used to some effect. They were not the Liberals' policies, they were the policies of the former Conservatives.
It is not hard to balance a budget when there are unlimited powers of taxation. One of the ways the Liberals balanced the budget was by confiscating $60 billion from EI, and the military, RCMP and public service pension plans, one of those pension plans being mine.
To say that the Liberals invested in national defence is a joke. I acknowledge the Clarity Act, but I wonder if the member would acknowledge that in fact it is the current Prime Minister who actually wrote the words that were in the Clarity Act that were then adapted, to the Liberals' credit, by his government to have what we have today. It was not their idea.