Madam Speaker, the member referred, I thought somewhat derogatorily, to a Baptist minister from Saskatchewan who recently, with Canadians from coast to coast to coast, was voted the greatest Canadian of all time, bar none. After the most extensive voting process in Canada's history, people chose Tommy Douglas as the greatest Canadian of all time.
I know, having been to Saskatchewan often, that the people of Saskatchewan are extremely proud of that heritage, and extremely proud to have founded the first medicare system that was brought in right across the country because of the efforts of Tommy Douglas. They are extremely proud of the incredible work of the administrations of the CCF and the NDP that brought a province into the modern age in the most effective way possible.
So, for that member to speak derogatorily about someone who is not only dear to the hearts of people from across Saskatchewan but indeed the greatest Canadian, as voted by Canadians, I find somewhat perplexing.
However, I do want to touch on another point. He referred to fiscal management. As the member should know, and I am sure he does not because there seems to be some difficulty with financial literacy within that caucus, there was a study done of a 20 year period, comparing Conservative, Liberal, Parti Québécois, Social Credit and NDP administrations across this country from 1981 to 2001. It would be no surprise to the member that the worst fiscal managers, from the actual fiscal period returns, were actually the Liberals. Some 85% of Liberal fiscal returns were actually in deficit. The second worst were the Conservatives, where 66% of the fiscal period returns, not the budgets, were in deficit. The best record belonged to the New Democrats, where most of the time, when we projected surpluses, we achieved them and we did them without harming people and by building provinces where every one mattered.