Mr. Speaker, first the Parliamentary Budget Officer blames the new Conservative deficit on “previous [Conservative] policy decisions as opposed to weakened economic conditions”. Now, Tom Flanagan, the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, says that they have squandered the surplus on purpose, to justify “ideologically driven, neo-conservative cuts”.
Why did the Conservatives kill the contingency reserve during the good times, gutting the fiscal capacity to help Canadians during these tough times? Was it incompetence, or was it ideology?