Mr. Speaker, the member across the way talked about support for bank mergers. There was a member of the House of Commons who did support the bank mergers. In fact, he said, “The mindset was, we need to be more global, more like Citibank”. We have seen what has happened to Citibank. Who supported bank mergers at the time? The current Liberal finance critic. It was he who stood and spoke. He has since issued a mea culpa to the Canadian people for his support of bank mergers. The Conservative Party and its two predecessor parties opposed bank mergers at that time.
The World Economic Forum's 2009-10 global competitiveness report has again ranked Canada as having the world's soundest banking system. Canada's banks and other financial institutions are sound and well capitalized, and we are less highly leveraged than our international peers heading into this global financial crisis.
The Prime Minister's focus is economy, economy, economy. His economic action plan is working. The action plan helps families to invest in their future with the Conservative tax-free savings account. It lets people put their hard-earned tax dollars back into the value of their homes, while creating jobs for people who work as contractors, builders, landscapers, roofers. That is through the Conservative home renovation tax credit. I was saddened to see that the hon. member and his party voted against the Conservative home renovation tax credit. They would take that advantage away from our families and from our economy.
All the spending in the economic action plan is timely, targeted and temporary. That means it will lapse in two years and allow the budget to move back to a balanced position. While the Prime Minister has been hard at work on the economy, the Liberal Party tried to force a wasteful and opportunistic election just a few minutes ago in the House of Commons. The Liberal leader tried to force an election that would destabilize the economy. Yet when the chips were down, the same Liberal leader voted against the Conservative home renovation tax credit.
The Liberals also voted in favour of the deficit. They voted for all of the spending that our government has passed, and the Liberal leader has proposed billions in new spending, above and beyond what this government has done. For example, the Liberal leader has proposed changes to EI that would allow someone to work for only 45 days and then collect EI for the rest of the year. That is why it is being called the 45-day work year. We respectfully disagree with this proposal because it would cost billions of dollars to the treasury.
The Liberals have proposed other costly ideas on old age security and employment insurance that would drive up government spending and the deficit. I invite my Liberal friend to work with us on the economic action plan. Let us work together to continue to create jobs, to help our economy in its recovery and to support Canadian families as we get through these difficult global economic times.