Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to take part in this debate on the implementation bill relating to the excellent budget the Minister of Finance tabled some time ago.
It is important for us to review all of the good measures in the budget. That might take a while, since it is chock full of good news for Canadians.
We have, for instance, made some major commitments to Canadians on key social and economic priorities. We respect those commitments, as the Liberal Party has always respected its commitments. We keep our word and, of course, we keep our promises to Canadians—and we are known for that—by continuing to ensure good financial management and balanced budgets, reducing the debt, achieving savings as a result of a careful examination of our spending, and improving the efficiency of our operations and service delivery.
This alone is evidence of the commitment of our government. To give one example, the members across the way were just saying that the Liberal Party had not, in their opinion, administered public funds as well as the Conservatives would have. We have memories of the Conservative administration and the sad events of that period. For years I sat on what is now their side of this House. What do we remember about the Mazankowski and Wilson budgets, and the budgets of all those Conservative ministers?
First, there was always a deficit. Second, even the deficit forecast was wrong, because the deficit at the end of the year was always worse than predicted. Hon. members will recall the total lack of discipline in the government of that day. There was no sense whatsoever of the common good. Things were never right at year's end. People were in despair. Interest rates and unemployment rates were high, and I am sure people have not forgotten that. They finally got rid of the Conservatives in 1993,12 years ago. It is my opinion that Canadians still do not want to go back to a government like the one they had then, with its total ignorance of how to administer public funds.
On our side, we are going through a period of prosperity since our party came into office. Thanks to the wisdom of the former prime minister, of the current Prime Minister, when he was the finance minister, and of other finance ministers who succeeded him, we have managed to put our fiscal house in order. This must be said, because it is very important.
I am not saying this because we, the Liberals, want to brag; this is not how I do things. However, it is important for Canadians to know that we now have low interest rates, which are at historic levels. Why? This is simple. The government, which was itself the biggest client of financial markets, no longer borrows money. It has not borrowed money in seven years.
In the history of our country, one Prime Minister's regime, under Brian Mulroney's regime actually, accumulated more debt than the entire history of this great nation put together. Have we forgotten that some $200 billion of debt was accumulated under one Conservative Prime Minister? That is a very sad legacy and we have been fixing it ever since.
We have been repairing things, making them better, and reducing the debt. The debt to GDP ratio has gone down considerably. We have repaid accumulated debt. We have enabled the country to prosper and grow. That is what we have been doing and there is more to do in the future. We intend to continue delivering good governance for Canadians.
The hon. members across were asking earlier why the government did not split up the budget into three or four portions, so that they could vote and cherry-pick. They would split up the budget, so they could vote and pass the part they liked and vote against, and presumably defeat, the part of the budget that they did not like. One has to be a Conservative to understand this and I am not very good at that and you, Mr. Speaker, being non-partisan, probably cannot do it very well either. But I guess for the folks across the way they can reason that way.
They want the budget to be split in different pieces. They then will have the liberty of cherry-picking, so that they will not offend anyone by voting against part of the budget. They will please their constituencies that will like the parts that they vote in favour of. It does not work that way. This is real life here in Ottawa.
It is important to point out that we have, of course, provided aid measures for agriculture in the budget. Agriculture has suffered a lot and is still suffering. Yesterday, I met with a group of farmers in my office, here in Parliament. They explained to me, for example, how much they appreciated the recent measures. The billion dollars in surplus that the Minister of Agriculture has just announced to us is welcome. In spite of this, agriculture is still suffering.
A little later today, we will have another debate on supply management. I am very anxious to speak about this and to offer my support to this agricultural sector, which is faring better than other sectors, but which is suffering, particularly dairy producers when it comes to cull cows.
Thus, a lot of work has been done to support the Canadian economy, to provide sound management and to manage taxpayers' money effectively. This budget is yet another illustration of this. However, I can tell you that there is still work to do. With a good Liberal governance that we will continue to have for a long time, we will continue, of course, to manage the public finances effectively.