Mr. Speaker, I am humbled by the amount of fascination with my previous history. As an elected person, as we all are, with virtually no ego at all, I hate talking about myself but when I have an opportunity like this I find it irresistible.
The $5 billion surplus figure that he just quoted is of course now. I was not there enjoying that type of surplus. What he left out of the figures that he was also quoting for 1999 was that 1999, closing out the year for 1998, was a phenomenal year of expansion and growth in the economy in Alberta. There was about $1 billion less in terms of resource revenue that year. There was $1 billion less in 1998 than in 1997 and yet the economy continued to expand, which continues to make my very precise point.