Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member on her speech.
There seems to be a perception on the other side of the House that things are not just right. Perhaps the reason why I believe that things are getting better is that I was here as an assistant and as a member of Parliament under the former Conservative government and I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that things are indeed getting better in this country.
I remember as a Canadian born in 1960 when I came to this House there was a $42 billion deficit. Now we are entering a new era in Canadian public policy where we will have the first balanced budget in a long, long time. This is lost on the New Democratic Party whose members think somehow productivity gains and a competitive society is built simply by spending.
As an Ontarian I remember the Bob Rae years with a great deal of sadness. We saw firm after firm leaving Ontario. We saw the competitive edge of a once very prosperous province vanish.
We had to do a great deal of work to re-establish a competitive economy that speaks to modern day values, to the fact that we live in a global society. We cannot be isolated as the New Democratic Party would like us to be.
What a difference the past four years have made to the lives of so many Canadians. Almost one million new Canadian jobs have been created as a result of some of our measures. I want to ask the hon. member, if she were to define the optimal conditions for economic growth, would they not be low inflation rates and elimination of the deficit? Do these not spur economic growth?