Mr. Speaker, the fact remains that in 2006 the government of the day inherited from the Liberals the strongest economy, the most robust fiscal situation and the cleanest set of books that any newly elected incoming government has ever received. That is as simple as I can put it.
If one's fiscal house is in order, there is the ability to address the fiscal imbalance, to deal with jobs, to deal with children, to deal with families, to deal with child care and to deal with other things. In the Mulroney era, in the 10 years of that Conservative government, there was not one balanced budget. There were some very good years there but it seems to me that if the deficit is not reduced when the government has a surplus and some debt paid down in good years, they certainly are not going to do that when the economy is on a downturn.