Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the hon. member for Medicine Hat started off his debate with the fact that there are more revenues coming into Canada. That is the reality. More Canadians are working now.
In 1993, and I am glad he pointed this out, when we took office the unemployment rate was almost 12%. Now we are down to 8.6% nationally. It is wonderful that we all recognize that there has been an almost 4% decrease, and I thank the member for pointing that out. That does mean that the economy and everything else works better. We do have more money to support our social programs.
When the hon. member talked about the finance minister and gave him credit, it is true, all Canadians shared in this. My speech did reflect that. Perhaps the member missed that part of it.
What I also want to say is we do also need to have leadership shown at the federal level. We do need to have somebody directing and saying that we are on a course. Clearly the finance minister did. He has said right from the beginning that we will balance the budget, we will have no deficit. Along with that he also made a very clear statement that we must preserve our social programs, that we must invest in health care, we must invest in education, we must invest in research and development. This budget does reflect those very values.
Ever since the Reform Party came to this House, it has said consistently that the bottom line is to reduce taxes at all costs. We are Canadian. Our vision in who we are is the fact that we believe in social programs. We believe that health care is important. We do not believe in a two-tier health care system like the Reform Party.
We have clearly stood up and said no to the Reform Party's agenda. We will balance the budget. We will and have reduced the deficit.
Clearly it is a budget we all should be proud of.