Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague and loved working with him on Arctic affairs. I also know that he was part of the government at the time before he came back in 2015. However, had he been listening, he would have been able to answer his own question.
It is very true that when the Conservatives came to power in 2006, for two years they reduced debts in Canada by about $30 billion. That is what my colleague for Winnipeg North forgot to say in his answer today.
There was a debt reduction in the first two years of the Conservative government of $30 billion. Then we had the world's worst recession since the thirties and the government planned to spend $150 billion by investing it in the economy. There were deficits in those years, along with a plan to balance the budget within seven years. The government announced its fiscal accountability and did balance the budget in its sixth year, just as the 2015 election came.
There was a $1.9 billion surplus left to the Liberal government. However, that government has completely failed Canadians in its budgetary analysis and everything it has done since 2016.