Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for providing me with an opportunity to talk about how proper budgeting and planning for the future happened.
What was remarkable about the Conservative government was that despite the fact there was a global recession, the worst since the 1930s, Stephen Harper did not want to raise taxes. We wanted to draw investment and jobs away from the United States, which was sputtering at the time. We did that. We did not raise taxes on households, either. We lowered taxes. In fact, we made small and medium-sized businesses the core of our economy, which is why almost two-thirds of Canadians work for those people, those people who are now being taxed with the carbon tax of the Liberal government.
What is remarkable is that we balanced the budget, despite stimulus spending and the global recession of 2008-09. Stephen Harper and the Conservatives had a plan to get to balance by 2014-15, which we did.
The Liberals have changed the accounting rules to suggest that we did not balance the budget. Balancing the budget put us on a competitive footing so that when the American economy recovered, which it has in the last few years, we would benefit.
That member owes Stephen Harper a big thanks.