Madam Speaker, I congratulate you on your temporary role.
I would like to thank my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou for his speech.
At the end of his speech he said that his party is a good manager of taxpayer dollars.
I find this is not entirely accurate. During the 10 years that the Conservatives were in office, we had $150-billion deficits. We also have deficits, this is true. We will get back to that a little later.
What did we get for all that?
Nothing. Under the Conservatives, economic growth ranged from 1% to 1.5%. With the Liberals, economic growth was stronger in 18 months than it was during the 10 years the Conservatives were in power.
If we look at the deficits from a historical standpoint, for over a century, the Conservatives have never been able to get out of deficit, although they inherited surpluses from the Liberals twice, namely in 1912 and in 2006.
The Conservatives have never been able to balance the budget without selling off government assets.