Mr. Speaker, I too, welcome the member to this august chamber. I think she will find this chamber to be a very rewarding experience.
I want to focus on the heart of her comments which hinged upon her allegation that our government somehow squandered the surpluses that we had. One could compare government to a family's finances. A family may have a line of credit at the bank or some other obligation that it must deal with but suddenly it finds itself with some extra money. It could set that money aside in a rainy day fund but the interest that would be paid on the rainy day fund would be less than what the family would be paying on its line of credit.
The sensible thing to do, the thing that I and thousands of families across Canada do when they have some extra money, such as a bonus from their employer, is to apply it to their line of credit where the interest rate is higher.
Unfortunately, the member did not even mention the fact that our government actually paid off $40 billion in public debt. Basically we paid off money against the mortgage that would have saddled future generations. It was very responsible.
I would ask the member to comment on how she can allege that money was squandered when $40 billion was paid off against the national mortgage.