Madam Speaker, the member opened by saying that there was no fictitious balanced budget left behind by the Conservatives, and he is absolutely right. There was no fictitious balanced budget, there was a real balanced budget. That balanced budget allowed us to, as I said, enter the recession and deficit after every other government and country in the G7 and re-emerge more quickly. That was a massive worldwide crisis, the likes of which we have not seen since the great global recession, a crisis that came to Canada from abroad, but one that we were successful at responding to here at home. We were the envy of the world, with Jim Flaherty even voted the best finance minister on earth at the time.
Now, the government has exactly the opposite situation. The world economy is roaring strong, commodity prices are up, interest rates are at record lows and booming housing markets in Vancouver and Toronto have poured money into government coffers. It has squandered every penny and much more. When will it stop? When will the budget finally balance itself?