Mr. Speaker, yesterday was budget day and the finance minister could call his new budget the Britney Spears budget: oops!... I did it again.
Once again, he tabled a huge deficit, and once again, he broke the Liberals' key election promise on deficits. In the budget, the minister is flip-flopping haplessly as he tries to fumble his way out of the mess he created last summer with his attack on small businesses. There is nothing in the budget to get energy resources to market, nothing to stem the flight of capital from Canada, nothing that will bring back lost energy jobs in Calgary, and nothing that will restore investor confidence in Canada, just $18 billion more stolen from our children's futures.
Between the broken promises, his attack on small business, his continuing ethical scandals, and his refusal to answer the basic question of when the budget will be balanced, which is the material question about a key election promise, it is time for a new finance minister before this one can hit us one more time.