Mr. Speaker, today we rise of course as the government is shutting down debate on its 851-page omnibus budget bill.
This fall, the government released its financial statement, in which it revealed that it had received a $20-billion windfall that resulted from factors completely out of its control. One, the world and U.S. economies are roaring. Two, oil prices have gone up by more than 100%. Three, interest rates, which are not controlled by government, are at near record lows. Four, there has been a housing bubble in Vancouver and Toronto.
All of these factors are, first, out of the control of government, and second, here today and potentially gone tomorrow. In other words, the government cannot rely on them permanently in order to fund its spending, yet that is exactly what it did. It got $20 billion in new windfall revenue, and it blew every penny of that. Plus, the deficit was twice what the government promised it would be in the most recent fiscal year.
The government said it would run three small deficits of no more than $10 billion and then balance the budget in the year 2019. That is only a few months from now. The minister has never once said when he will balance the budget, not since the election, when he promised it would happen in 2019. Will he please rise now and tell us in what year the budget will be balanced?