Madam Speaker, today we heard the debate over who is responsible for the deficit and the national debt. Let me quote a few numbers here. Both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives were responsible.
Back in 1972 our national debt was $16 billion. When the Liberals came to power in 1983, the national debt was $160 billion. In other words, it climbed from $16 billion to $160 billion. The Mulroney Tories came to office in 1984 and by the time they left in 1993, the national debt had moved from $160 billion to $489 billion. The Liberals came back to power in 1993 and they took the national debt from $489 billion up to $600 billion in 1997.
I know it has been reduced since that time but the Liberals are reneging on their responsibility for fiscal problems in Canada. The deficit is one of those problems, especially when we spend more than we take in. The cause of that is that we have borrowed too much money over the years.
It is good news that we are balancing our annual budget but our national debt is still something like 71% of our GDP. It is still too high. Until we get that in order, health care and all other services will lose a lot of money. If we put $42 billion of our interest into our health care annually, everybody in the country would be happy.