Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague her thoughts on the performance of the Minister of Finance in the fall of 2008, at a time when the government was in deficit. It had inherited a surplus of $13 billion back in 2006, and it had put Canada in deficit by the beginning of the 2008-09 fiscal year.
As we all know, the recession started in the fall of 2008. By September or October it was pretty clear we were in it. However, in November, when it was very clear, the Minister of Finance brought forward a fiscal budget update, suggesting that nothing was wrong, that there was no need for any stimulus measures and no need to react to this global recession that was developing.
What sort of a finance minister fails to recognize a problem and has to be forced into taking the measures for which he now claims so much credit?