Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy these debates where the Liberals and Conservatives take a lot of time to attack each other's fiscal performance and argue about who has done the worst job.
However, if members asked constituents in my riding about deficits, here is what they would say. They are still looking for affordable housing, and both of these parties ran deficits, and there is no affordable housing available in my riding. They are looking for child care, and both of these parties ran deficits, and there is no affordable child care available in my riding. When we look at veterans, there are veterans in my riding still waiting for the benefits they earned, but neither of these parties delivered those benefits, yet they both ran deficits.
In my mind, there are a lot of things we can do before we run deficits. Sometimes we might have to. We can make corporations pay their fair share of taxes. We can close down the tax loopholes.
My question to the member, who never really talked about what the Liberals are actually spending money on, is about big items. Why would the government run a huge deficit by buying a $5-billion leaky pipeline, and why did it contribute $35 billion to an infrastructure bank that in its first year made just one loan?