Mr. Speaker, the history of business is filled with scandals and scams as companies cooked the books to hide financial disaster. The Lehman Brothers global financial services firm hid more than $50 billion in loans disguised as sales. Bernie Madoff conducted the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding investors of almost $65 billion. Enron, the energy company, kept huge debts off the balance sheet, costing shareholders $74 billion.
The new Liberal budget reminds me of those scandals. The Liberals want to increase the national debt by $321 billion, with a $78-billion deficit this year alone. They changed the accounting method and hid the true debt by calling it “investment”. Canadians are not fooled. They know they are once again being asked to pay the bill for Liberal mismanagement.
The finance minister and his buddies need to learn that scammers always get found out.