Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his softball question.
First, it was the policies of the previous government, and I named the GST and deregulation of financial services, transportation and energy along with the monetary policy of that government which wrestled inflation to the ground. Those were difficult choices, ones for which my party paid a significant political price, that enabled the member's government effectively to go on the public policy equivalent of a nine year Sunday drive and do nothing and actually eliminate the deficit.
It was the economic growth from free trade that enabled his government to eliminate the deficit. It was the revenue generated by the GST that enabled his government to see the end of the deficit.
The fact is the Mulroney government inherited a deficit as a percent of GDP that was 9%. It was reduced to 5% of GDP by the end of that government and for the first time in around 15 years there was an operating budget surplus, if we take out interest rates. At the same time, that government was able to wrestle inflation to the ground through the monetary policy.
The member asked how we could prevent the policies of that former government from ever being introduced again. He is sounding more like the Liberals did when they were in opposition because every single initiative that was proposed by the Mulroney government was vociferously opposed by the opposition, including the GST, free trade, deregulation of financial services, transportation and energy. In fact, when the Mulroney government cut back on spending, it was the member for LaSalle—Émard and his colleagues who were crowing the loudest about the cuts.
The member should not be criticizing those policies but should be waking up every morning and thanking God that there was a Progressive Conservative government that had the vision, foresight and wisdom to do that which his government would never have had the ability to do.