Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. It is a question that is worthy: would we continue?

We had the largest infrastructure program that the federal government has ever been involved in. Those are the facts. The Liberals are talking about a larger one now. That is fine. However, at the time, it was the largest infrastructure spending that we ever had.

What did we do? We began by saying we would double the gas tax rebate to municipalities and get it out the door earlier so they could be involved in the construction period. Every municipality across this country applauded that measure. We did not tie it to any jobs. We said, “You can pick your priorities. You, municipalities, can take that money and put it where you want. We want that out the door. We're going to make it permanent. We're going to double it.”

We did that, doubling from what the Liberal Party had done.

Then we indexed it. Then, we said that we would continue to invest in the largest Canada building fund across the country. We did that.

Why did we do that? We did that because the world had moved into this recession. Prior to it, we had paid down close to $40 billion in national debt, we had lowered the taxes, lowered the GST. That is the record of the previous government.

Then, when the world moved into this recession, not created here in Canada, we started spending. We did not spend enough at the time. The Liberals felt we should have spent more, as did the NDP. However, we did not spend without a plan. We said, “We're going to invest in infrastructure, we're going to come out of that and back to balanced budgets.”

In this election, the Liberals have said they are going to spend up to $10 billion in deficit this year. Yet, now, everyone says, “There is no upper limit here” and they spend, spend, spend.

We worry for the economy, business worries for the economy, job creators worry for the economy, and they worry about the government that is a big-spending government and just straight big government.

Kevin Sorenson

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