Mr. Speaker, speaking of thin ice, the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest was a member in the House. Actually he sat on this side of the House with the Mulroney Tories when I was a member of parliament in opposition.
It is pretty thin ice when he starts criticizing Liberal members on what we have been able to do with the mess the Conservatives left us when they were over here for nine years. It gets more and more difficult to believe he actually is telling us that we did not do a good job in balancing the books. All the Conservatives spoke of for nine years was about what terrible financial shape the country was in.
I am an accountant by trade and there was something I really believed. I really believed the Tories were good accountants. Can one imagine my shock when I became a member of the government and realized not only did they just talk but they were terrible accountants? There was a huge debt with which we were saddled after hearing about how fiscally responsible the Conservatives were. They really were not very fiscally responsible.
Since then I think we have done a fairly good job considering the difficulties we were facing.