Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Vancouver Granville, and I would like to wish him a happy belated birthday. He is looking pretty good for just one year shy of 50, and I think the whole House would agree with that.
I really appreciated the fact that the parliamentary secretary acknowledged that the government is focused and working on a budget for November 4. Also, he said that we are going to have to make some difficult choices to make sure we can protect Canada's fiscal position, differentiating from the Conservative view that the country is broken. Conservatives are not highlighting the fact that Canada has the best debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7 and the lowest deficit.
My question to the hon. member is this: Does he find it a bit facetious that he has to listen to the Conservative benches talk about deficits when the Conservatives actually proposed $106 billion in new spending in their platform just a few months ago? Does he find that just a little strange?