Mr. Speaker, it is always interesting to hear about other members' ridings. I congratulate the member on his participation in the debate.
I have been here for 15 years and time and time again the Conservatives continue to parrot certain lines which do not reflect reality. The member said, and I quote, “We recognized what was on the horizon in 2007 with regard to this economic action plan”. The reality is that we have infrastructure spending that was approved and allocated but never streamed out in the current fiscal year and will not be. There are programs which will now lapse, such as the Centre of Excellence for Women's Health, the Centres of Excellence for Children's Well-being, the Health Council of Canada, the Canadian Council on Learning, and the $750,000 of core funding for the Canada Council on Social Development.
The reason the Conservatives do not put out any more money on infrastructure in the current fiscal year, which does not end until March 31, is that it is bad and they do not want to show a deficit any worse than it already is going to be in the current fiscal year.
On top of that, when we look at the economic statement that was made last November, it showed that we would have a surplus for the current fiscal year and for each of the next five fiscal years, and it did not reflect an acknowledgement of what was coming down the pike that the member suggests was done in 2007.
Would the member care to clarify his comment that the government was fully aware back in 2007 that we would have not only a deficit, but would be in recession?