Mr. Speaker, the excellent results we now see followed decisions that were made very early on when we formed the government.
At the time we did not know exactly what the outcome would be so we developed a plan. The plan is working better than we thought, and everyone should be very pleased about this.
We should also consider the fact that when we formed the government, the Minister of Finance and I realized that the previous government's budget forecasts were always more optimistic by as much as 8, 9, 10 or 11 billion dollars than was actually the case.
The Minister of Finance decided to be more rigorous and is to be commended on the results we obtained. And the provinces,Mr. Leader of the Opposition, are much better off, because they pay far less interest on servicing their provincial debt thanks to this government's good management.