Along with the economy and the creation of jobs, eliminating the deficit is on our Governments priority list.

PHOTO CREDIT - GuyLauzon.ca

Cornwall - Jan. 16, 2012 - Along with the economy and the creation of jobs, eliminating the deficit is on our Governments priority list. Just like an individual, a country cannot continue to spend more money than it receives year after year. To do so is courting financial disaster.

The management of a country's financial affairs is very similar in many ways to managing a household budget. You have income and you have expenses. The trick is to ensure the expenses don't grow larger than the income. Some years are more challenging than others. Unexpected developments like illness, loss of employment, major house repairs etc. often require families to spend more than they earn in a particular year.

That is exactly what happened to our country in 2008. Because of the global recession our Government chose to go into a deficit position to the tune of $55 billion. The reason for this was to protect our economy from total disaster. I think we made the right decision at the time. Not everyone agrees with the action we took but it helped the economy create 600,000 jobs and it appears we are on the road to recovery.

That recovery however, comes with the need to pay down the deficit incurred in 2008. So far we have managed to reduce it to approximately $31 billion. But there is a long way to go. Prudence is the key to eliminating the deficit. That is why our Government is insisting that all ministries review every expenditure to ensure they are necessary and we are getting good value for our dollar.

We are on track to have the deficit eliminated by 2014/2015. That is why you can expect the upcoming budget to be a responsible, prudent, continuation of the Economic Action Plan introduced by Finance Minister Flaherty in 2008.

Guy Lauzon
Member of Parliament
Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry