Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the motion. It will allow me to talk about some of the economic progress the government has been able to achieve with Canadians over the last four years. It will also give me an opportunity to deal with the absolute, total and complete hypocrisy of the Tory Party that put forward the motion.
The Tories have a very selective memory. I do not blame hon. members every time it is brought up for saying “Let's not talk about that. We will just point toward the future”.
Many of the challenges we have in the future are the result of their total incompetency in managing the Canadian economy for the nine years in which they were in power. In fact it is to the point that back in 1994, shortly after we had taken over, the Wall Street Journal described what the Tory government had done to this country by saying that Canada was then a candidate for membership in the third world.
That is a party which with the very words of its motion says volumes about the way it thinks. The Conservatives do not look to the historic progress Canada has achieved over the last 50 years in creating social policy that is the envy of the world. No, they do not look toward that. What they look toward is the United States.
The Conservatives look to the model of the United States. It is a model where we see millions of people without health care. It is a model where they create employment by simply driving down minimum wages so that people are not able to live on those wages. It is a country where the inner cities are totally crumbling. That is the model that party points to and it totally ignores what this nation has been able to accomplish.
More important, when we talk about a party that does not honour Canada, that is the party which just last week in this House totally abandoned the interests of Canada and voted with the separatists. It abandoned Canadians. That is what that party across the way did last week. It is total hypocrisy. I am sorry to use that word again, Mr. Speaker, but that is what that party did. What does not help the country is voting with the separatists.
But let us return to the debate. This debate is about what Canada has in fact been able to achieve over the last few years. Again, there is faulty memory.
The Tories came to power. And they are right. There was a deficit. It was around $38 billion in 1984. Boy, they worked to bring it down. They had policies to bring that deficit down. They were going to clean up the finances of the country. They inherited $38 billion and what was it when they left nine years later? Had they eliminated it? Had they made progress on it? Yes, they made progress right up to $41 billion. That is the progress that they made. In the process of doing that they more than doubled the national debt. That is the type of progress the Tory party made in terms of controlling the deficit.
The balance sheet is not the only thing we ought to be looking at. I know the Tories certainly do not want to look at it. In half the time it managed to go from that $42 billion deficit which we inherited to a point, and I will quote the finance minister who I believe said “on the cusp of a balanced budget”. That is $38 billion to $41 billion in eight years and $42 billion to zero in four. I think the Canadian people were quite appropriate in the choices they made back in 1997.
Let us look at another important measure which is the measurement of job creation in the last four and a half years. We have made some progress but it is certainly not enough yet. Unemployment is at 8.9% although that is a lot better than the 11.2% when we took office. It is still not good enough and more progress does have to be made.
Let us make that comparison in job creation. In the first 51 months of this government's mandate there has been over one million net new jobs created in this country. Most are in the private sector and most are full time. What happened in the last four years of the Tory government? We saw much the same progress as we saw on the deficit, a 58,000 decrease in net new jobs in this country in that period. Let us compare the record: 58,000 jobs lost, or over a million jobs created.
I think Canadians understand that the economic policies of this government have meant progress for Canada. Increasingly better economic ideas have meant a better country economically for the people of Canada.
Let us talk about taxation for a minute. We believe in reducing taxes. In fact the last budget saw a number of significant tax decreases. But they were tax decreases, not as the Tory party suggests across the board where those who earn more get a bigger tax break, they were targeted tax decreases.
They were tax decreases that were important to Canadians who needed it. For example, $850 million to low and middle income Canadians with children. Tax reductions for Canadians with disabilities. Tax reductions for Canadians making charitable donations. Tax reductions to help individuals pursue post-secondary education.
We believe in applying principles when it comes to tax reductions. One of the most important ones is that low and middle income Canadians will benefit first from tax reduction. Second, tax reductions will be provided when we have the surpluses to provide them, not by going out and borrowing the money as the Tory party has suggested we do.
Let us just talk about one particular tax reduction the Tories did suggest during the campaign. I want everybody to listen to this because this is almost unbelievable. The Tories suggested that corporate income tax would be reduced from 28% to 24%. That is right in their platform.
What would that mean? That would mean that those paupers of Canadian society, those hard done by people in Canadian society, the Canadian financial institutions, the Canadian banks, would receive a $300 million tax reduction under the Tory plan. That is what they were suggesting, that we reduce taxes for Canadian banks by $300 million. That is their idea of progressive tax reduction.
Canadians saw the type of ideas that they were trying to put forward and they were not fooled. Canadians understand something and they understand it well. Although we continue to have difficulties in this country, and we do—I do not think anybody in this House would suggest that we do not—Canadians understand that the policies of this government have worked to improve the situation.
We took over in 1993 at a time when the previous government had put this country close to economic ruin. We have restored the health of the nation's finances. We have seen employment increase. We have historically low interest rates as compared to the Americans. We have a sustained low inflation rate that is the envy of the industrialized world. In fact we have had economic growth in the last 12 months near the very top of the OECD.
There is one conclusion that Canadians have, and that is that the Tories' incompetency in managing the financial affairs of this nation is matched only by their audacity in trying to re-write history.