Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to NDP governments balancing budgets and their records in that regard. His own leader gave accolades to Greg Selinger, the Premier of Manitoba.
Let me give a specific quote from the Winnipeg Free Press. It is somewhat dated, but it is during NDP administration.
The Manitoba government cited only the $13-million figure in its Sept. 30 news release about the province's public accounts and omitted the actual deficit figure of $604 million, the auditor general said. This could have given Manitobans the false impression there was no deficit, when in fact its size was second only to the $822-million deficit of 1993....
The point is that the NDP likes to talk, but in reality it has been very deceptive.
If we reflect on the endorsement of the provincial NDP given by the federal New Democrats, one of the major economic policy platforms it announced was to increase the provincial sales tax from 7% to 8%. Is it the federal party's intention to increase the national sales tax?