Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity earlier to congratulate the finance critic for the official opposition on his address, and I thank this member for his address as well. Hopefully I will do better with him than I did with the finance critic.
When we arrived in office, we inherited a technical recession. We inherited anaemic growth, or among the most anaemic growth rates in the western world. We inherited over a hundred billion dollars in cumulative borrowing from that government, which took a structural surplus from Paul Martin and turned it into debt. Yet that party ran on a platform of balancing the budget at all costs.
We ran on a platform of investment in the economy. I would ask this member, as I asked the finance critic before him, if he can he be very specific. Given the state of the economy that was left to us, what would they do to balance that budget? Would they cut, and where would they cut, or would they tax, and who and what would they tax?