Senator Housakos: Government leader, it is really remarkable that three weeks after getting this question, you can’t answer in a transparent and honest forthwith fashion. It’s not a complicated question.

I think I understand why your government refuses to answer the question. I would be embarrassed as well if I were part of a government that is paying $44 billion of interest this fiscal year on the debt that you have doubled since you have come into power. I would be ashamed to actually come up with that number. You have had ample opportunity to answer the question.

I can understand the shame, because in this fiscal year your government is about to spend as much money on the interest on the national debt as you are in health transfer payments, which explains why one in five Canadians — and I would venture to say one in four in some provinces — don’t even have a family doctor.

I have another question for you, and it’s an even simpler one. If you look at this current fiscal situation, your government’s spending is almost even on interest payments on the debt and health transfer payments.

In 2015, I was a member of this chamber when the government at the time was spending $27 billion in interest payments on debt that previous governments had accumulated. It was less than two thirds of what they were paying in health transfer payments to the provinces.

If you weren’t a Liberal government representative in this chamber and you were an average Canadian, which one of those two fiscal pictures would you prefer to have as a Canadian citizen?

Senator Housakos: Absolutely. I’m not used to you asking me. I am used to you answering me.