Mr. Speaker, the newspaper report that the hon. member refers to is misleading. Federal government spending actually has increased. Relative to the last quarter of 2008, federal spending increased by $1.5 billion, or 2.4%, on an annualized basis.
What was different was that we had lower debt charges in the first quarter due to lower interest rates, and that had a significant dampening effect on growth, but spending on programs rose over $3.2 billion, or 6.2%, in the first quarter of 2009, relative to the last quarter of 2008.