Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question. As a matter of fact, it was a bug put in my ear by a fellow colleague.
When we think back to just after the election in 1993 and even during the election, we heard Liberals across this country say that the budget could not be balanced, that it could never be balanced in three years or in a short period of time because the economic growth rate would go through the floor. They were like Chicken Little running around the country then I remember.
Liberals were saying that if Canada tried to balance its budget, the growth rates would be non-existent. We would shrink. We would go back to having children with tar on their noses, something like the industrial revolution. The economy would grind to a halt because Canada could not handle a balanced budget and the cuts in government spending that would necessitate.
I am wondering how three years later the Liberals can sit here bleating, preening and patting themselves on the back for balancing the budget and not recognize that indeed they have gone against everything they were saying three years ago. They have accomplished what they said three years ago was impossible. Then only the Reform Party was saying that the budget could be balanced.