Mr. Speaker, I am sure my hon. colleague will not be surprised if I disagree with almost all of the points that he has just made. My colleague asks for facts and I will remind him that when our government paid down the debt by $37 billion, we achieved the lowest debt that Canada had in 25 years.
Again, my colleague refuses to recognize the urgency and the crisis that we faced when the international economic monetary crisis loomed and where we did spend. It is quite true that we ran up a deficit to $56 billion at its height, but that was in the interests of stimulating the economy, in creating jobs, in addressing infrastructure needs that the country needed and continues to need. At the same time, having stimulated the economy, having saved the Canadian economy, being admired by countries around the world, the envy of the G7, we have now reduced that deficit and are, as I said in my remarks, on target to return to surplus by 2015-16.