Yes, a lot of closure and time allocation debates, and then the time spent during the votes on those things. I think we had five in a three-day span last week. We have been discussing the $18-billion deficit that the government is running, despite the fact that it promised a balance budget by next year. We are talking about some pretty devastating stuff.
The government has increased spending by $58 billion annually and cannot find a way to balance the budget. It had increased spending by over 21% in four years and our kids and grandkids are the ones who will pay the price for that down the road, just like in the days of the former Trudeau government of the 1970s. There were massive increases in spending and it was the generation in the mid-1990s that had to pay for a $35-billion cut in health care, social services, and education transfers to the provinces, which was when the bill came due. We are going in the same direction now.
It is very encouraging to have the opportunity to talk about something other than the nationalization of pipelines, for example. At one point, there were four pipelines in the pipeline, so to speak, when the Liberal government was elected in 2015. Northern gateway was approved and energy east was well on its way. Trans Mountain was moving forward as well, and there was a lot of talk about Keystone XL.
The Liberals managed to cancel northern gateway and completely changed the rules that made it impossible for energy east to move forward. The energy minister likes to say that the company made an economic business decision to cancel energy east, after it had spent $1 billion navigating a regulatory system, and the government changed the rules on it. Naturally, it made an economic decision not to go forward and not to waste another $1 billion.
It is very encouraging to have the opportunity to talk about something tonight other than the Liberals' failed policy on pipelines, which has it now buying a pipeline for $4.5 billion because it cannot find a private sector company to move forward with it, when there used to be four projects on the go. It is very nice to have the opportunity to talk about something other than those things tonight.
We could have been talking about the carbon tax. There has been a lot of discussion about the carbon tax.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to have the finance minister go before the finance committee of the House of Commons and tell Canadians what the carbon tax will cost Canadian families.