Madam Speaker, before I begin, I want to extend my sincere congratulations to my friend and colleague on the recent addition to his family, which all members of the House had the benefit of hearing about during a recent episode in the chamber.
To address his question, I will not apologize for government policies that have put money directly into the bank accounts of Canadians during an emergency and that have allowed them to weather this storm. He referred to the proposed economic strategy of the Conservatives, which he indicates would lead to some new-found investment. However, the reality is they have tried those strategies before and failed. If we look at the economic record during the Harper government's years, we realize it had the slowest growth rate since the Great Depression and $150 billion of debt. Conversely, before this pandemic, the investments we made had Canada reach its lowest ever rate of unemployment, and we had the healthiest fiscal position in the G7.
We are going to continue to support Canadians, both households and businesses, to make sure they can weather this storm and help kick-start the recovery once it is safe to do so.