Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour to rise to debate the budget. It has been an honour to rise to debate every budget we have had since 1993, since this government came to office.
The House will recall that when the government changed in 1993 we encountered a deficit situation which amounted to $42 billion. What a difference seven years makes. I am no fan of deficit budgeting. There was a deficit when the Tories took over. In half the time they doubled the debt. It was becoming a travesty. Had the situation not been turned around, there is no doubt the International Monetary Fund would have been looking over our shoulder. I remember one of the first tasks the Minister of Finance was required to perform. He went to New York to calm the fears of Wall Street.
Over that seven years we have succeeded in overcoming the deficits and now, for the third year, are into a surplus situation. I am told it is only the third time since Confederation that there has been a three year run of surplus budgeting. It has changed the whole complexion of governance. It has changed the way we do business, and we have had to learn to do it from an entirely different perspective.
This last budget consisted of an initial thrust into comprehensive tax cutting. We had done a bit in some of the years before for people with lower incomes and so on as we could do it, and rightly so. Now the Minister of Finance has been able to come in with a far broader based tax cut. He has also said that as the country can afford it those tax cuts will increase with the years.
The remarkable thing about it is that unlike our friends in the province of Ontario it was done without maintaining a deficit situation. We have maintained the surplus and we have built a very strong base that will reflect very positively in the immediate years to come.
We are into a new world, a new experience. It is expected that in the next year we will have the second highest growth in the G-7. The prediction is something like 3.8% and that is remarkable because it is not accompanied by inflation. It is not accompanied by those ghosts that sit behind us when we move forward with a strong economy.