Mr. Speaker, his last words prove I have made a convert. Here we have someone on the Conservative side saying that it is good to pay down debt. All the Conservatives have talked about up until now, and what their lead speaker kept saying, is, “Don't pay down debt. Cut taxes”. Now we have my hon. friend from Fort McMurray at least agreeing with me. I thank the member. I must say that I am looking forward to him opposing the member for Medicine Hat and standing alongside my vote because that is good stuff.
Some of those members are learning but the member has not learned everything from what I heard him say before he made that comment.
With respect to the issue of Fort McMurray and the tar sands, the member cannot have it both ways. If all the good things going on there are the responsibility of something else, the member cannot blame what is not good on the federal government. He has to be fair.
The fact is that Alberta would not have those developments if it had not been for the Prime Minister, when he was minister of finance, making the changes to the taxation system which started the boom in 1994, which the member knows full well but simply will not admit.
Why did that not happen when the Conservatives were in power? That did not happen because they did not have our minister of finance who made those tax changes. You know that. You have to tell your constituents that, even if it means you probably should, in theory, lose your seat.