Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the hon. member's comments by stating that the minister has been in the House for a long time, not always on the government benches. He is part of a government that began its administration in the late sixties with a vision of "we can help Canadians because we are all knowing and all powerful and able to solve all Canadians' problems for them. All we need is their money and their co-operation. If we do not get their co-operation we will force it down their throats".
This vision was expressed by the Liberal Party and has been around for some two and a half decades now. It has failed miserably. The consequences of that failure is what we are dealing with today. Yes, the Conservatives had a hand in it too. The Conservatives are culpable because they had an opportunity to do something about it in 1984. They looked it in the eye and walked away from it.
It is a creation of the Liberal Party. It is a creation of ministers such as the one I was referring to. It serves the Canadian people to understand not only how we are going to deal with our problems but how we got here in the first place and the bad ideas that brought us to the brink of debt and ruin.