Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on his first speech, and I welcome him into the House.
However, perhaps the member is not familiar with the history of previous Conservative governments and their ability to balance budgets, but I will fill him in a little.
In the last 18 budgets that were introduced by Conservative governments in this very House under Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper, 16 of them ran deficits. Of the two that ran surpluses, one came on the heels of Paul Martin's $13-billion surplus and the other came in 2015 when the Conservatives slashed veteran services and sold off shares of GM at bargain prices so they could balance the budget in time for the election.
As the member spent a lot of his time today talking about balancing budgets, I am curious as to why he thinks the Conservatives are in a position to be lecturing on balancing budgets when their track record speaks absolutely nothing to their ability to do it.