Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party has been saying for months now that the government numbers are just fantasy numbers and for our troubles we have been ridiculed from one end of the country to the other.
However, the truth is now starting to come out. I want to offer the observations of the organization known as the Centre for Spatial Economics which is used for background purposes. It is the key economic prognosticator for the Department of Finance. There are essentially four of them and everybody feeds off the numbers of the spatial centre.
The finance minister has argued that his previous tax cuts are stimulative. The centre says that is faulty math. Here is what Robert Fairholm said:
This is a fantasy. Most of the short-term stimulus from these measures have already boosted economic activity...It is enough to push the economy into negative territory. Economically speaking, it doesn't make sense in terms of fiscal policy.
Economists have widely panned the federal government's update last year for presenting unrealistic forecasts of small surpluses. The country is in deficit and has been in deficit for a while now. It was in fact in deficit during the election, so I put it to the hon. member, why is it that his government, in the person of the Minister of Finance, is actually putting forward false numbers? Why is he manipulating the Department of Finance to produce fantasy surpluses?
I would like him to answer that question and how--