This is probably a debate that would take more than the time you would allow me, Mr. Speaker, to engage in great depth.
Probably the easiest way to answer that is as much as there are some good arguments for fiscal stimulus in certain contexts where there is sort of a brief aberration in terms of levels of demand, in the long term it will be an increase in productivity that sustains economic growth over a long period. I think Keynes would agree with that, as well as a range of economists across the spectrum.
The problem I have with the government's budgetary policy is not that it supports fiscal stimulus in unique times of recession, but that it seems to believe that we can perpetually run deficits. I think every serious economist would agree that we cannot be constantly running deficits to stimulate the economy. The very basis of Keynesianism is that we run deficits at certain times and surpluses at other times, not that we have a constant situation in which spending exceeds what the government is taking in. Obviously, that would lead us to a debt crisis, and then we are in a situation where we cannot stimulate our way out of it, because we have run out of other people's money.