I think she is too old to be a senator.
Even Dalton Camp, the arch Conservative, said: "According to Wednesday's media reports almost everybody liked the budget and generally approved of it. They were not offended or threatened by it. The overall editorial tone was laudatory, if not exultant, sounding like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a rousing finale of its rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic".
Some business economists have sent items about the budget. "We are on a role. There is a momentum building in the economy", said Andrew Pyle of Path International. Sherry Cooper, Nesbitt Burns chief economist said: "Evidence continues to mount that the Canadian economy is finally breaking away from last year's nearly recessionary condition". I could go on.
The export business in this country is not just moving along slowly. It is not just being promoted by the private sector. It is our Prime Minister who has taken hundreds of businessmen on trading trips, signed billions of dollars worth of contracts and has done an absolutely marvellous job.
He realizes the importance of Canada's competitiveness. We have been competitive. We are competitive. We are more competitive right now on the international scale than we have ever been in the last 40 years since they started taking the statistics. As a result of that we will probably reach very soon this year a roughly balanced international current account.
When the government took office there was close to a $30 billion deficit in our current account. That means this country had to borrow internationally $30 billion. As a result of the export promotion the Prime Minister has done, as a result of the economic policies of this government, that has been reduced to a very small figure in the last quarter in the last year.
This year we will probably record a surplus. That is the net result of the sales of goods and services and the purchase of goods and services abroad. That is a remarkable turnaround. Any economist will say that is remarkable.
It is not solely the result of the private sector. It is the result of the climate the government has produced for the private sector to grow in the export market, the efforts of the Minister for International Trade, the foreign affairs minister and especially the Prime Minister.