Madam Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to say a few words about Bill C-2.
Right at the start, I would like to point out that we Progressive Conservatives are constantly being forced to defend our track record. According to the government and the official opposition, we are responsible for all the ills of this country. According to what my Reform Party colleague said earlier, one would conclude that the Progressive Conservatives have not done one positive thing.
I would like people to judge our reputation, not on what one politician says in a speech, but on what our government accomplished in the nine years it was in power. There is no shame in rising in this House as a Progressive Conservative. In the last century we were in power for only very short periods, but these were always productive periods that made a contribution to restructuring the country as a whole.
I will read the following excerpt. I know that my Reform colleagues are not interested, but hon. members ought to listen carefully to what one of the best editorial writers in the country has to say about the record of the Progressive Conservative government and of Mr. Mulroney. Hon. members will see that this rises above prejudices and purely partisan declarations.
I am doing this strictly in order to illustrate that what was accomplished during those two mandates bore fruit, and will continue to, in a progression that is more than merely geometric. I am sure that my colleague from Frontenac—Mégantic has caught my drift, being a mathematician par excellence.
To quote the editorial “When the Chrétien government boasts of the economic results, which are starting to look good, it does so—”