Madam Speaker, the member raises a very important point.
The Conservatives are now in their fifth year of power and in every year those great index finger waggers before the eternal, giving everybody else lessons in how to manage the economy before they racked up the new $58 billion record deficit that replaces the previous Conservative record, who told everybody else what they should be doing, now need to wear it.
Here is the reality of the fourth quarter of last year. While corporate Canada ramped up production and collected 9% more profit in the fourth quarter, it cut investment in plant and equipment by 2.3%. All these corporate tax cuts, which are supposed to be a way of stimulating the economy and creating employment, have just contributed to executive bonuses, inflated paycheques and have done nothing for the economy.
If the Conservatives believe in stimulating the economy and doing something for the future, since we are already leaving a $58 billion debt on the backs of future generations, let us at least build some green renewable energy infrastructure so we can at least leave something to future generations instead of the debt.
The Conservatives, however, do not know how to do anything else except wave their index finger, give other people lessons and tell them what to do. They have never been able to do anything completely in favour of the population, in favour of job creation, in favour of helping the elderly or in favour of helping the unemployed. They have a dogmatic approach to monetary and fiscal policy that we will see once again this afternoon when we get another Conservative retrograde budget and when we see the Liberals vote with them as they always do.