Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely astounded to hear a Conservative accuse the government of failing to deliver on its promises.
I had the experience, which the member did not, of sitting through five Conservative budgets. They had to cut this and they had to cut that so they could reduce the deficit. I saw a Conservative government consistently increase the deficit and fail to deliver on a single one of the promises it made.
On the other hand I have sat through four Liberal budgets. I have seen them not only deliver but overdeliver on their promise to cut the deficit and in less than five years reach a balanced budget.
I heard the member talk about employment insurance premiums. He may not be aware of it, but he represents a party that increased employment insurance premiums consistently when it was in power because it failed to provide for a time when unemployment would rise, as it did to over 11% under a Conservative government. How dare he criticize a government that has consistently reduced employment insurance premiums and reduced the burden on both workers and employers.
Before the member comes into the House as a representative of the Conservative Party, perhaps he might want to check the history of his own party and of his own leader on the issues about which he talks. I suggest he might want to deal in his speech honestly with how the government has delivered on its commitments to Canadians on deficit reduction, on reducing EI premiums and on reaching a balanced budget. It is well ahead of target and is putting the economy on a sound footing which it has not been on.
He talked about reducing taxes. Is the member aware that when the party he represents was in government it was responsible for increasing taxes over 33 times? One of them was the 3% surtax on income, which I note the finance committee is suggesting we should be reducing and getting rid of eventually.