With pleasure, Mr. Speaker. I would be very pleased to address the concerns, but first, if the hon. member had actually listened, I mentioned three times what our position was on the bill and three times I think is enough. He can check the blues if he does not want to listen.
It is funny because the hon. member who just spoke actually sees most of his federal riding now represented provincially by New Democrats. What he is doing now is standing in the House and criticizing the electors of his communities who chose to elect a New Democrat, among the 33 New Democratic Party MLAs who now sit in the B.C. legislature. They chose to make those choices and he is criticizing his own electors. Since he seems to oppose his own electors so vehemently, that may be an inkling of what is to come in the next few weeks, so he should be very prudent about the kinds of things he says in the House.
I should also mention that I understand the Conservatives are kind of fiscally challenged, but the record deficits we have seen in British Columbia come from the Gordon Campbell government. There are record deficits beyond belief in British Columbia. There were balanced budgets handed over to the Gordon Campbell regime and Gordon Campbell has left us with record deficits. There seems to be a contradiction.
If the hon. member is very concerned about deficits, he should be looking at who did the worst job. The balanced budgets of the NDP, which were handed over to Gordon Campbell's government, or the record deficits that we have seen from the B.C. Liberals.
We are seeing with the Olympics now, hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns, as he knows very well, that were not raised when the initial Olympic requisition was put forward. Now we are seeing from this management, hundreds of millions of dollars of further funds required.
It is not surprising why the member is fiscally challenged. He knows very well, as we know in this corner of the House, that the Department of Finance has actually analysed fiscal period returns from all major political parties from 1981 to 2001. The worst financial record, based on the actual fiscal period returns of provincial and federal governments, actually belongs to the Liberal Party. It has the worst record of financial management fiscal period returns of any of the political parties in Canada. The second worst record belongs to the Conservative Party administration, federal and provincial.
The best record in financial management, based on the fiscal period returns, and we are not talking about budget, we are talking about fiscal period returns, belongs to the New Democratic Party. It is important for the public to know this. Not only are we good and effective on social programs but we are also the best financial managers in the country.