Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. Many facets of it have been brought forward and need some response. I said we were getting our fiscal house in order. I talked about the direction we have taken as a Canadian government. Those remarks were well reflected in my colleague's comments. He suggested that the growth of the economy has been very good.
How did growth of the economy occur? We have to stop and think about the trade missions the prime minister put in place. He has involved the provincial premiers and the business community of Canada. He did whatever he could to make sure Canadian companies could expand, become stronger, make more profit and pay higher taxes. All these things were actual accomplishments of the direction of the government. For someone to complain about the growth of the economy bringing in more funding to the federal government seems a little ludicrous to me. It seems a little off base.
However, we all know we have not increased personal income tax. We have not made the increases that these folks thrived on year after year.
I sat here in 1988 and I watched taxes go up and up. We stopped that. I watched how they went about with programs they were putting in place. Now they are complaining that we have made the economy grow, that we have held interest rates down, and that we have done things that have principally put Canadian business in a very competitive position worldwide. We have increased our trade dramatically. There has been a one-third total increase in trade over the last few years, thanks to good government.
How does that affect taxes? Without increases we have increased the dollar flow coming in. Most Canadians would respect that is the best way to go about this issue.
He also mentioned that there were some cuts in dollar transfer payments to the provinces. Yes, that is true, but he did not mention the fact that the tax points the provincial governments were getting were increasing because of the increase in the economy. We cut some of the tax dollar transfers but we also increased our economic value which meant that more dollars were coming in to the provinces through tax points.
As a result I think everyone in this room has to fundamentally agree that we have taken a tremendous direction. It is a very positive step for Canadians. It is a positive step for Canadian businesses. It has been a positive step for governments and it will definitely be a positive step for the programs we are carrying out.
Had we followed the right wing agenda over there, the difficulty we would be in today would be further slash and burn policies and further increases in taxes.
I remember Michael Wilson saying year after year after year “We missed the target by $10 billion this year. We missed it by $8 billion last year”.
The Reform Party is trying to say “Now that you guys have straightened out a lot of the economy in the country we are going to tell you how to spend your profits”. All I have heard the leader of that party say in the last six months is how he would manage the new situation. That is pretty ludicrous.
I listened to where the Reform Party is going now and how it is going to give tax cuts. It is going to give this and it is going to give that. Giveaways do not work. Getting the basics right is the important thing to do. The Reform Party has missed the basis of getting the fundamentals right. It would love to take credit for it all. As a matter of fact its members say that because they have pushed us hard we have done a good job. That is kind of a sidestep.