Mr. Speaker, I wish to draw to the attention of the House the September edition of Fraser Forum . To cut through the bafflegaff, two years ago the Fraser Institute developed a Canadian budget performance index to monitor the financial records of the country's 11 senior governments.
The index is composed of an array of variables dealing with both spending and taxation as well as deficits and debt. The best performer in 1995 was the province of Alberta, and Saskatchewan is forecast to be the best performer in 1996.
The worst? Over the two year period it is forecast to be the federal government, placing 10th out of 11 in 1995, and forecast to be no better than 9th for this year. This is all the more fascinating since much of federal budgetary progress in the past two years has been in the form of offloading to the provinces.
There are two lessons here. First, Canadians should not be conned about the federal fiscal situation. The federal Liberals have a record of brilliant propaganda and mediocre performance. Second, the House should be reminded once again of the invaluable public policy work that is regularly provided to Canadians by the Fraser Institute.