Mr. Speaker, recently the May 3 Economist magazine had an article, Canada's “post-crisis glow is fading”, and, in fact, it was a profile of the Canadian economy. In the article it says:
In the government’s retelling of the crisis, it alone stood between Canadians and doom. Yet luck played a large, unacknowledged part...The government was lucky that steps had been taken [by the previous Liberal government] to strengthen the banking system...lucky that a previous Liberal government had eliminated the deficit [and paid down debt]; and lucky that resource-producing western provinces could take up the slack when the manufacturing heartland slowed dramatically.
We know the Conservatives cannot take credit for the strong banking system. We know they cannot take credit for the strong fiscal situation they inherited. Are the Conservatives telling Canadians that they put the oil and gas and potash under the ground as well?