Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his election. In fact, in another life, he was my own city councillor.
That said, my colleague argues that it is not at all customary for a government to get elected, open Parliament and immediately table a budget. He may be right about not tabling an entire budget, but it is customary to table an economic statement. It is customary to give information to the House.
I see him writing on his sheet, and he is going to say that I am wrong. Let us suppose that I am wrong; even so, there are not many examples of governments that open Parliament, do not table a budget, but then, without presenting a budget, spend $26 billion on tax cuts, $38 billion on additional credits and $9 billion on defence.
The whole situation is abnormal, as is the lack of a budget, the lack of an economic statement and the spending spree that the government is proposing here, without allowing us to do our job as parliamentarians.
Right now, the House is calling for a budget, but the first act of the new Prime Minister is to show a profound lack of respect for a request from the House.