On the contrary. I say to the hon. member across the way, who is criticizing me for having committed this terrible crime, as it appears to him, of having addressed the House in English, there is no reason for me to apologize. I was fortunate enough to represent and to have lived in a community where I can, I think, use one language or the other, with equal, or almost equal, facility.
I have other examples here of quotes from the Reform Party, and we could go on for a long time, but I would prefer, in the few minutes remaining, to tell you about our government's accomplishments. This could keep us going for a while, because our government has accomplished some very wonderful things.
Allow me to remind you of just a few. First, the government has reached the deficit reduction targets. This has to be said. We restored the confidence of the market and created a climate propitious for lowering the interest rate and creating employment. The unemployment rate dropped from 11.2 per cent to 9.3, still too high, but over 600,000 more people are working today than on the day we were elected.
What is more, today we see an atmosphere of confidence in the investment field. The people who heeded us and invested in the Canadian stock market will know just how confident people now are in the Canadian economy.
The Canadian economy is picking up. There is, of course, still too much unemployment, and we are in the process of looking at this area. Today, the Minister of Human Resources Development has tabled an initiative on manpower training.
We could talk of the deficit, which has dropped from 6.6 per cent to 3 per cent of GDP in three years, something no other G-7 country has accomplished. Just today we saw news reports on the productivity levels of our country, and the improvements that have taken place. At this very moment, according to the OECD, we are more productive than Germany, France, Taiwan and a number of other industrialized countries. And why?