Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. I would like him to talk to us about Advantage Canada and about his goal to reduce the debt, but I hope he bears in mind that this debt was created by the Conservatives, that is, by his party. Because the Conservatives created the debt, the Liberal Party, in order to achieve zero deficit, slashed transfer payments to the provinces in the areas of health care and education. That is the reality.
What did the provinces, particularly Quebec and Ontario, do? They slashed their investments in cities and school boards.
I hope he is aware of this situation: while he is paying off his debt, cities and towns are going into debt. Representatives of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities told us that the deficit for infrastructures alone is $123 billion. I hope he is aware that, while he is paying off his debt, cities and towns will go further into debt to deal with infrastructure, and that some of them will not be able to do so.
And this is all because the Conservative government drove Canada into debt and is now trying to pay off that debt. I have a very hard time with this.
Since the gas tax rebate is one of the measures he suggested, will he support what the Liberal Party is proposing here today?