Mr. Speaker, I think all Canadians know we have a very sluggish economy right now. The Bank of Canada recently revised our growth downward from 1.3% to 1.1%. We have a jobless environment, and trade has been really sluggish for the last several years now.
The Liberals came into power telling Canadians during the campaign that they would run three modest $10 billion deficits and balance the budget in the fourth year. The reality is that they ran a $30 billion deficit in their very first budget, and they plan on running another five of them.
They promised Canadians that their recipe for dealing with this was to build public infrastructure, not sell it. Therefore, my question is about asset recycling. They make it sound as if privatization is an environmentally advantageous step. What does my hon. colleague think about the government's plan to sell public assets like airports that make money for Canadians, instead of building public assets, as they promised Canadians during the election?