Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I have found that whenever a government brings forth a budget, it always says that it is bigger and brighter than ever, with more razzle-dazzle-pizazzle. Now, this one is more hopeful than ever. One peers through the black curtain and sees the Minister of Finance with his big, old, tattered top hat, pulling sedated bunnies out and saying “Here is another tax cut for you. Isn't this marvellous?”
The reality is the Prime Minister was the person who told us to go out and buy a bunch of bargains when the economy was going down the toilet. He told us that there was no deficit and that there would never be a deficit. That was in November, just a month or two ago. He said that we were in surplus, when according to our numbers now we were at least $3 billion to $5 billion in deficit.
When he says he is willing to run a short-term deficit, is he not already saying that this is a government that has put us in deficit because of its GST cuts and that it is not actually stimulating the economy, but paying for the mistakes of a government that simply does not understand what is happening in the global economy?