Madam Speaker, the government is handing out election goodies by eliminating the GST for two months. This measure will benefit the wealthy when they go out to eat or buy alcohol. When the government presented this measure, we saw that it was a pre-election move that would benefit the wealthy and that it was not the right approach to take. That is the new measure set out in the economic statement.
This morning, we learned that the former finance minister called this a political gimmick, so she agrees with us. We are not forming a coalition against the government with all of the other parties. Even the former finance minister is speaking out about these pre-election gimmicks that are designed to buy votes, which is unacceptable.
As for the deficit, the former minister admitted that her government has spent record amounts since 2015. To reassure the markets, she set an anchor that was exceeded by over 50% for the year coming to and end. However, we are only finding out about that at the end of the year because the government did not table the public accounts. The current year is not over yet and they have already blown through their fiscal anchor for this year. That is unacceptable and inexcusable. Let us fix this with an election.