Mr. Speaker, I was not part of what happened then. There were certain circumstances going on, not only in the country but around the world at that point in time. The culture quite frankly was not there. We were not the only government in the world that was spending more than it took in. It was characteristic of a lot of the governments around the world.
Somehow some type of cultural shock happened in the late eighties or early nineties when people and governments started to wake up and say “We cannot continually spend more money than we have taken in”.
Many of the things that happened in the 1984 to 1993 timeframe set the pins in place to get the fiscal dividends or rewards we are getting today. I remember the opposition at the time, which is now the government, was totally opposed to free trade, figuring that it would destroy Canada. It has been the greatest bonanza or dividend the country has ever received.
Our future will be in free trade. Whatever happened in the past will never happen again. We have to put in place balanced budget legislation and firm debt reduction legislation to make sure that governments manage the economy and the assets given to them by the people and not just dole out money and create programs.