Hon. Wayne Easter: Mr. Speaker, quite simply put, as I said in the beginning of my remarks, this is a Prime Minister who has really undermined the fiscal capacity of this country to do what needs to be done, whether it is in what most of my speech was about, agriculture or seniors or early learning and child care or whether it is for health.

    This a Prime Minister who has undermined the fiscal capacity of this country. It is hard to believe that just prior to the government coming into power, we were the envy of the western industrialized world in terms of our management of government spending and the economy.

    Then this crew comes to power. The government has the biggest spending budget in Canadian history. It denied it was in deficit, but now it has to admit it was. Now we have the biggest deficit in Canadian history. We have a Prime Minister who does not believe in the requirement to have a strong central government to do things in terms of social and economic programs that make a difference in people's lives. That, simply put, is the problem.