Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his kind words. He was a House officer for his party for some time and we had the pleasure of working together.
The hon. member confessed that it was the Conservatives who were responsible for what I thought was half or so of the accumulated debt in the history of Canada, all of it under one prime minister, Brian Mulroney. His successor only had a summer job, and she was kicked out right away.
If I understood the hon. member correctly, he was apologizing for Brian Mulroney for having brought us one-half of the accumulated debt in the history of Canada based on the fact that it was not a particular kind of deficit, but another kind of deficit. I have never heard of Canadians being more satisfied because program money was mismanaged as opposed to some other kind of money. I do not think that would wash with Canadian taxpayers.
Half of that debt was so created. No new debt has been created in the country for seven or better of the last 10 years. We have repaid accumulated debt. Almost two million more Canadians are working today than were working when we came to power in 1993. Those are the facts. New numbers have come out today. There has not been an increase in unemployment in the middle of winter, and that is almost unprecedented. That is the kind of good management we have had under this government. I am proud to be a member of this team.
I ask people to vote for the bill because it has excellent things in it. I am anxiously awaiting an even better budget, if that is possible, on February 23.