Mr. Speaker, I will acknowledge that we had a strong economy in the past, thanks to the hard work of Canadians and sound Liberal policies over a decade.
It was foreseeable that one day an economic crisis would come from abroad. We are not in isolation. We were not in isolation when we had SARS. We were not in isolation when we had 9/11. We prepared the country for that.
Why did the Prime Minister get rid of the contingency reserve of $3 billion? There was no reason for that except mismanagement on the part of the Conservative government. I am not alone in saying that. I will read what the parliamentary budget officer wrote:
The weak fiscal performance to date is largely attributable to previous policy decisions as opposed to weakened economic conditions....
The Conservative government is responsible for this deficit and it has the responsibility to come up with a plan, a plan that we want to see as soon as possible, which is why we want this Parliament to continue to work.