'A new and much tighter system to manage its spending'

The complete text of Stephen Harper's reply to the Budget is available, and posted here. The top half is just devastating. A sample:

Mr. Speaker, this is the tenth budget of this tired, old and corrupt Liberal regime.  The first eight budgets were delivered, as Canadians know, by the current prime minister... Mr. Speaker, in those early budgets, the Prime Minister, who was finance minister at the time, took full responsibility for the spending program of the government.  The message of those budgets was clear: your finance minister is in control of taxpayers’ dollars. In his 1995 budget speech, the current prime minister said the following: The government has just introduced a new and much tighter system to manage its spending… For the first time, departments will have to prepare business plans for three years forward… that transparency and that accountability will mark a major departure from the past. … Individual ministers are being asked to alter their funding approach accordingly. They will be held accountable for their decisions and those decisions will be reviewed annually. Reviewed annually, one can only assume, by the minister of finance, or at least by Treasury Board, on which the minister of finance was the vice chair. The year 1995 is significant. That is the year in which the Liberal government nearly lost the country. That was also the year in which the Liberal government decided to create a sponsorship program. Allow me to rephrase that: The year that the Liberals created the Sponsorship Program was also the year in which the current prime minister put in place “a new and much tighter system to manage its spending.” Of course, most Canadians remember 1995 as the year in which government cut billions of dollars from the health care system. Allow me to rephrase that: The year that the Liberals created the Sponsorship Program was also the year in which the current prime minister massively cut spending on health care. The 1995 budget put forward four priorities. The very first priority was to: Reform government programs and procedures to eliminate waste and abuse and ensure value for the taxpayer’s dollar. This promise was repeated in his 1996 budget speech: If there is one area where we must never let up, it is the effort to root out waste and inefficiency. And in his 1998 budget speech: The battle to root out waste and inefficiency can never end. Now, allow me to rephrase all of that: The year in which the Liberals created the Sponsorship Program was also the year in which the current Prime Minister first vowed to root out waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. And now this budget, once again, tries to establish the government as “prudent managers.”  The government has made a number of recommendations to tighten spending.  They want to re-establish the office of comptroller general.  Canadians are rightly asking, “you mean you don’t have one now?” And the answer is, no. The answer is “no” because the current Prime Minister cut this office in his first budget as finance minister. They want to appoint professionally accredited comptrollers.  And Canadians are rightly asking, “you mean they aren’t accredited now?” And the answer is no - because the Prime Minister never thought it necessary to establish them... The Prime Minister cannot have it both ways.  He cannot claim, on the one hand, to have had a tight reign on spending, and at the same time, not created the most elementary spending control mechanisms that this scandal has finally driven the government to recommend. The Prime Minister cannot have it both ways.  He cannot claim, on the one hand, to have “reformed government programs”, to have “eliminated waste and abuse”, and at the same time claim that he had absolutely no idea that $100 million dollars was being shovelled into the hands of Liberal friends. Yet, that is exactly what the Prime Minister is saying today...