Mr. Speaker, first, the finance committee has observed repeatedly that the debt-to-GDP ratio is not a fiscal anchor upon which one can build a public budget.
Second, the member knows, of course, that most of the jobs being created are in the public sector. We need private sector job creation to pay for those public sector jobs.
If we look at Greece before it went into its economic death spiral, it had the same type of trend. It had a reducing debt-to-GDP ratio, and then it suddenly skyrocketed. When we hit the debt wall, that figure instantly begins to change, something the Alberta government experienced in the 1990s when it hit the debt wall. When it did so, and the banks and international institutions refused to lend to it, successive governments had to pay the price. The price was then paid by the taxpayers of Alberta through higher taxes at the pumps, higher taxes on income, and deep cuts to public services. That will be the end result of this Liberal budget.