Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by commenting on the absurdity of the motion before us. To think that one month's worth of information or even six months' worth of information constitutes information for an entire year is patently absurd. It is like people looking at their bank balance before they have paid their bills and saying how thankful they are for a positive bank balance, not realizing that their bills amount to more than what they have in the bank.
Let us just start by telling the honest to goodness truth to Canadians. When the Conservatives prepared Budget 2015, they got it wrong. They made an economic assumption for growth that was incorrect. There is not one economist in this country who believes that the assumption they made was correct.
When it came time for our economic and fiscal update in November, we looked at the true facts of what was going on in our economy and realized that the Conservatives' assumption for growth was just wrong. The revenues were going to be seriously different from what they had assessed them to be in their budget and, therefore, we are faced with the inevitability of a deficit this year based on the actions and assumptions of the government before us. There is no simpler way to state it.
The next thing the Liberals can do is to deal with the real facts. The real facts are that we are in a deficit position. The question that faced Canadians in the campaign was what we should do about it. We presented them with a plan to grow, to actually deal with the real facts and create a new Canada, one that invests in productive assets for the long term, to help businesses and Canadians do better in the future.