Mr. Speaker, I listened with considerable interest to the new member for Madawaska—Restigouche who, I might say, speaks an exemplary French.
However, in his speech, he mentioned our government's accumulated deficits, and I would like to give him a little background quickly. Prior to 1970, the federal government had little deficit but, year in year out, the deficit accumulated.
With the arrival of the philosopher Pierre Elliott Trudeau at the helm of the government, the deficit began to grow. However, on his arrival, Brian, the hon. member's spiritual leader, whom he obviously dare not name, threw himself into lavish spending so that, in its final year in government, the Conservative Party had a deficit of $44 billion and an accumulated debt of $600 billion.
Obviously shameful. However, the word also applies to the party currently forming the government if not more than to the preceding government, when it draws an annual surplus of between $6 billion and $9 billion out of the pockets of the impoverished workers by unduly increasing the employment insurance premium, while cutting benefits, shortening the period of eligibility for employment insurance and tightening the requirements.
On this point, I support my colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche, but when he talks about the spending of the current federal government, I suggest he look in his own back yard to see what the Conservative Party did during its nine years in government. It spent extravagantly too.