Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the question that was asked by my hon. colleague. I want to begin by congratulating him when he concedes the fact that it was a good thing to get rid of the deficit. When the government came into power in 1993, it was facing this massive deficit and was paying interest of $3 billion every year, which was a waste of taxpayer money. Some dramatic action was needed. It was good that our current Prime Minister, then the finance minister, took immediate actions to resolve these issues.
Obviously, we have had a remarkable economy in the last three years. A good part of that has to do with the fact of our good credit rating. The government took charge and ensured that we got rid of the deficit and those heavy payments that were a burden to taxpayers every year. We could not have had or afforded the present deal that was signed with the provinces on both equalization payments and health care. We could not have moved forward with child care if it were not for the measures that were taken some 11 years ago by the then finance minister.
To get our house in order, those measures had to take place. Today we can talk about meeting our Kyoto protocol. Today we can talk about what we want to do about child care. Today we can talk about what we want to do about employment insurance. However, we could not do that back then. We had to take all these measures.
It is to the credit of the Prime Minister, the then finance minister, for taking these very wise measures that have left Canada in a great place in the G-7.