Mr. Speaker, regarding accountability, the fact that this government called an inquiry I think shows the Prime Minister's commitment. He moved very quickly to call the inquiry, and a public inquiry.
My good friend from Dufferin--Caledon, who served with me in Ontario, will be speaking next. He will remember that in Ontario we had two incidents. One was the Walkerton situation and the other was the Ipperwash situation. At the time I was speaker and I watched while the opposition asked two successive premiers to call public inquiries on those two issues. They did not do it. Eventually it was done on Walkerton and when the new government came in it did so for Ipperwash. That contrasts with the leadership of this Prime Minister, who moved very quickly, right away. He said it did not matter who was involved, whether or not it was anybody within the Liberal Party. He called the inquiry.
I contrast that with the situation of Ipperwash in Ontario. I will not get into details, but there were allegations that the premier's staff was involved. This Prime Minister Minister moved very quickly and said, “We are going to get to the bottom of this”. That, sir, is accountability.
I would ask the hon. member to comment on that as well as the balanced budget. There have been seven straight balanced budgets. Again, my friend from Dufferin--Caledon, who also served in the Ontario legislature, will remember that the government of the day left a $5.7 billion deficit. Serving as speaker, every day I heard the opposition say to the government that it had a $4.5 billion deficit. The minister of finance said there was no deficit. After the election there was a deficit of $5.7 billion.
In terms of accountability, this government moved very quickly on the Gomery inquiry and I think the Prime Minister should be commended for that. Second, how does the hon. member account for the fact that this Prime Minister, when he was Minister of Finance, cleaned up a mess, quite frankly, of $40 billion left by the previous government?