Mr. Speaker, I always listen with attention and sometimes amusement to my friend across the way who has a self-exalted position of being the financial guru of the western world.
It is easy to run a surplus when one has unlimited powers of confiscation and taxation. In bragging about the $13 billion surplus, I would remind the hon. member that it was courtesy of the $60 billion confiscated from pension funds for the public service, RCMP and the Canadian Forces, and another $50 billion confiscated from the EI fund. It does not take a financial genius to run a surplus with that kind of power.
Has the hon. member understood or listened to any of the people around the world whose main comment, when talking about Canada and the strength of the Canadian economy and its unemployment and employment situation, is they wish they were in fact in Canada?
I know we can never come up to the hon. member's self-exalted standards, but will he admit that financial literacy is important and that any step in that direction is valuable, whether it comes up to his marvellous standards or not?