Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and especially for giving me the opportunity to respond because this is really important.
The Conservative government made some very difficult decisions in the past. We had no choice to make them because we had to balance the budget after the worst economic crisis we had ever known. That is the reality. We made choices and we stood by them.
The reality is that all the policies we implemented made it possible to balance the budget, despite the fact that we cut jobs in all departments. Today, let me repeat that the minister boasts about having been able to recover $13 billion last year. That is certainly not because of the Liberals' policies. They just came to power a year and a half ago. They did not put those practices in place in six months.