Mr. Speaker, I cannot sit here without correcting a misperception that is perpetrated constantly by members of the Liberal Party, that is, that they were the ones who were successful in bringing under control the debt that was left to them by the Mulroney Conservatives.
I remember in 1993 when I was campaigning that the debt was around $520 billion. I complained about it. I told people that was why they should vote for Reform; that is what we were at that time. In reply, the Conservative candidate said they in fact had a balanced budget on program spending, but the amount of the debt was simply and purely the accumulated interest cost year over year on the debt they had inherited from the Liberals nine years earlier. I did the math because I am a math type of guy. I found him to be correct and I stopped making that particular point in our all candidate forums.
In other words, starting with Mr. Trudeau, during the times when Mr. Chrétien was the treasurer and had record deficit budgets, that is when we accumulated this huge debt hole that we got into. It was accumulated by the Liberals. In nine years, I admit, the Conservatives did not in fact pay down all that debt, but they did simply inherit the Liberal debt and then they left the Liberals with the same debt, just with the accumulated interest. It is their own debt.
I also would like to point out that the debt right now--we have had an accounting change to a full accrual system--still stands at an amount greater than when the Liberals took over in 1993.