Mr. Speaker, the finance minister has been making the bizarre claim that back during the debt crisis of 2008-09, the big mistake countries made was not adding enough debt. In fact, the countries that did what she suggested and what she is doing now, including France, Spain, Greece and Italy, all experienced massive double-digit unemployment because they kept piling up debts in the middle of a debt crisis; whereas, Canada, Israel, Switzerland and Germany, which had small deficits and returned to balanced budgets, kept unemployment low. Will the government not admit that the best way to get people back to work is to have strong finances for the nation?
In the House of Commons on April 26th, 2021. See this statement in context.