Mr. Speaker, let me try again. During the finance committee's pre-budget consultations, the committee heard from many people across Canada, many experts, who were cautioning the government about going further and further into debt.
In fact, I want to quote from The Macdonald-Laurier Institute:
...setting out a clear and credible plan to eliminate the deficit in particular should be the government's top budget priority, and—I put it to the committee with respect—your top priority as well.
Failing to do so risks setting us on a path of protracted deficit and increasing long-term costs or long-term opportunity costs. In this regard, I'd encourage the government to reconsider the enactment of fiscal rules, such as balanced budget legislation.
Would my colleague explain why his government, upon taking office, immediately reversed the balanced budget legislation our government had enacted, which would have kept us from this precarious position of going further and further into deficit financing?