Mr. Speaker, I will start with the last question first, relative to the foreign content issue. I guess the member did not hear what I was saying. Canada's equities markets have grossly underperformed those of other countries, but Canadians are not to blame for that.
I think Canadians, with the right type of leadership, could excel and create economic growth, jobs and so on but they need lower taxes. That is one of the reasons why in Canada our TSE, the Toronto Stock Exchange, has grown in value by only 60% since 1993 when this government got elected. During the same period of time, the Dow Jones industrial average has grown by 180% in the U.S. The Standard & Poor's 500 has grown by 172%.
During the same period of time, Americans growth and wealth, for those who participated in the market because of their mutual funds and pension funds, have become three times wealthier in terms of growth in economic wealth compared to Canadians. Wealth is a relative thing.
The hon. member opposite may be satisfied that Canadians are getting poorer while Americans are getting richer, but I and members of my party are not.
In terms of his comments relating to dubious bookkeeping, my comments reflected those of the auditor general a number of times over the past few budgets of the government.
The fact is that in 1984 the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney inherited a $38 billion deficit, in 1984 dollars, from the previous government. At that time, that represented 9% of GDP. By the time the government left office in 1993, that had been reduced to around 5% of GDP, almost halved as a per cent of GDP. During that time that government implemented free trade, the GST and deregulated financial services, transportation and energy.
I wonder what impact those policies had on this government's ability to eliminate the deficit. It was summed up very well in an article in The Economist last January. It said that the credit for deficit reduction in Canada belongs largely to the passage of time and economic structural reforms made by the previous government, including free trade, the GST, deregulation of financial services, transportation and energy, all those policies which were vociferously opposed by this member's party.
I heard one of the members from the other side of the House earlier today accusing the opposition of fearmongering. I see the hon. member has left the House he is so ashamed of his mistakes and his intervention.
During the free trade debate, I remember Roy MacLaren, the current high commissioner in London and past Liberal member of this House, actually saying that the Liberals would blame the Conservative government for every sparrow that falls. Well, it is because of those initiatives that a lot of sparrows have soared in Canada. It is this government's high tax policies since 1993 that have basically caused a lot of fallen sparrows and a lot of falling incomes, personal disposable incomes and standards of living for Canadians.
I would add that the member for Waterloo—Wellington has come back and has regained his composure.