Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Scarborough Centre for his comments. In fact. if I were to thank him in his own language. I would say:
[Member spoke in Greek].
[English]
My hon. colleague from Scarborough Centre said that he would not talk about the unkept promises of the government. I can understand why. It is because we only have 20 minutes for a speech at this stage of debate on this bill and It would require unlimited time to go through that list.
I will talk for a minute about what the finance minister has been doing. He has been going around the country bragging about Canada's record, economically, and the situation, fiscally, and about our strong banks.
I am sure my hon. colleagues know that the Conservative government came into office with a surplus of $13 billion that it inherited from the previous Liberal government and, within three years, it had increased spending by 17.8%, far beyond the rate of inflation.
Of course, we also know that the Conservatives were in favour of changes to regulations that govern banks that would have put us in a much worse situation in the crisis that we have had in the last couple of years with this recession and in the crisis that led to this recession.
I wonder if my hon. colleague would comment on the finance minister's bragging as he goes about the country, and whether he believes that is justified.