Mr. Speaker, you are doing an excellent job in the Speaker's chair. It is a new career for you.
The member started out fairly well by saying that he wanted to have a fiscally responsible government, unlike the previous Conservative governments that had such huge deficits. However, that lasted about 30 seconds and then the rest of the 10 minute speech listed spending, spending and spending, mostly in one province. We can imagine what that adds up to.
I suppose that is why John Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said:
Under [the Minister of Finance], the size of the federal government has grown by an astounding 14.8 per cent. How is this fiscally conservative or even 'responsible'?...Amazingly, the Conservatives have bested Liberal spending. This is a spend-thrift government.
What is said in this budget is very scary for Canadians: if the GDP were to go down by 1%, next year we would be in deficit. Canadians fought so hard to get out of deficit under Liberal governments that the fact a tiny change in the economy could put us into deficit is very scary. With the problems in the United States economy, what are the chances of a possible 1% decrease in GDP? This would be coupled with the problems in the manufacturing sector.
It is a very worrying prospect for Canadians, who have already incurred so much pain with deficits, to be so close to that again.