Senator Housakos: Government leader, the only thing this government’s wild and overkill spending has achieved is to create historic inflation that, again, is pummelling middle-class and poor working Canadians. This government is oblivious to the fact that interest rates can rise at any moment. That’s why, a year ago, we did have one of the best debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, as we did in 2015, but we are in decline there. We are falling behind. If interest rates go unexpectedly, about which you guys were shocked — it went from 2% a year and a half ago to 5% — wait until it gets to 7% or 8%. What kinds of excuses will we hear from this government then?

And yes, the Prime Minister lied; he misled Canadians when he made a commitment to balance the budget by 2019. In this town, we have to start coming up to speed with the fact that when we mislead taxpayers, we have to account for it somehow and not double down.

In this budget tabled a few days ago, your Minister of Finance has added $63 billion of new debt. Do you think that’s fiscally responsible when we’re on the eve of a recession?