Madam Speaker, let us do a reality check. The Conservatives were in very good shape to withstand what happened in 2008-09, and members know where I am going on this, because they were left a pretty healthy balance sheet by successive surpluses. That is okay. In addition, the problem is that Mr. Harper had us in deficit before the crash. Not only did he plunge us into deficit, but he added $156 billion to the national debt. How did he do this? I will ask the member for reflections on this, but first, he defunded the government. Everybody loved those cuts in the GST, but that was $14 billion. It was difficult for him, then, to have the means to react, and instead, he put us back into a deeper deficit.
Does the member not agree that the whole issue of running up deficits represents where we are today because of some very poor strategy, not necessarily mismanagement, but very poor strategy? Does the member not agree that it would have been better to not defund the government when Mr. Harper chose to do so?