Mr. Speaker, this past summer as I travelled through my riding of Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Simcoe I had the opportunity to meet with 26 town councils and hundreds of constituents.
The question that was most frequently asked of me was: "What has the Liberal government done for me?" This was my answer: "If I had told you back in the summer of 1993 that in three years our government would achieve the following you probably would not have believed me". The deficit is down from $42.5 billion in 1993 to $17 billion by the end of 1997, a 60 per cent decrease.
Exports are up by over 30 per cent. The prime rate is down to 5.5 per cent. Mortgage rates are down by 4 per cent. On a $100,000 mortgage that gives homeowners an extra $3,000 a year in their pockets, and that is without a tax cut.
This is how far we have come and I strongly believe that we should continue moving in this direction.