Mr. Speaker, it is true that when we took office the economy was in worse shape than we had thought. The reality is that we are going into debt to rebuild our communities, to rebuild our cities, to rebuild our rural municipalities, and I think that is something Canadians want. I know they certainly wanted it on October 19 when they voted in the new government.
It is actually quite funny to hear representatives from the previous government accuse us of being in debt. The previous government ran eight consecutive years of operating deficits, it ran a trade deficit every single year that it was in power, and it had the lowest rate of GDP since the dirty thirties.