Madam Speaker, I want to remind my colleague that I was in fact elected 14 years ago, but he is right, I was elected to the government for the second time two and a half years ago. It is an honour to have been elected to serve in that regard.
I want to remind the member, who was himself more recently elected, that under the previous government, in fairness, and objectively, the national debt was increased by $160 billion. It is true that the previous government faced the 2008 economic crisis, as did the Canadian provinces. It is true that for some sectors, the government begrudgingly worked, for example, with the Province of Ontario to provide assistance to the auto sector. Of course, since then, every loan has been paid back with interest.
It is important to remember that we had a choice to make, and it was a stark choice. The Conservative Party ran on a platform of austerity and cuts, and we ran on a platform of investing in Canadians and in core infrastructure. This is our moment not just to keep the pump primed but to lay the groundwork for a century of success for Canadians by making sure that we have the hard infrastructure we need and that more and more Canadians are joining the middle class and have great, equal opportunities to succeed, contribute, and thrive.