Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
From what he said, he is strongly opposed to deficits and adding to the national debt. He spent much of his speech criticizing deficits.
However, I am having a hard time reconciling his statements with the record of the Conservatives, who ran deficit after deficit. They too added to the public debt non-stop during their time in office and then, at the very end, after juggling the numbers a bit, they were barely able to announce that they had balanced the federal budget. However, during all that time, they continued to add to the national debt. I am trying to reconcile all of that.
I would therefore like to ask my colleague the following question: when exactly is it good to run deficits? His party ran deficits and the party that is currently in office is doing the same, saying that it will stimulate the economy. When is it good to run deficits? Does the member believe that his party was right in running deficits and adding to the national debt when it was in power?