Mr. Speaker, whenever this minister uses the words “prudent” or “frugal”, Canadians should know that what he really means is that he has broken the bank.
Having inherited record surpluses two years ago, he proceeded to spend like crazy, earning the title “highest spender since Confederation” from Andrew Coyne, who is himself hardly a Liberal.
So the consequence today is that the fiscal cupboard is largely bare and the minister has just announced a projected surplus two years from now of $1.3 billion before any contingency reserve. Anyone who knows anything about finance knows that that is a nanosecond from deficit financing.
My question is this. Why did this fiscally incompetent minister so squander his massive Liberal fiscal inheritance when he is on the verge of returning to that territory so familiar to Conservatives, non-stop, year after year, deficit financing by every Conservative prime minister from R.B. Bennett to Kim Campbell? That is where he is heading.