Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Ottawa Centre has reminded me of a graphic illustration. Seven years of Grant Devine's Conservative government almost ruined that province. Eight years of Allan Blakeney budgets were all balanced. Eight years of Roy Romanow budgets were all balanced. Now the current premier has actually turned that province with balanced budgets into a have province instead of a have not province. That is a good track record.
I do not say that to be smart or critical of my colleagues in the Conservative Party, but let us be historically accurate when we make these kinds of claims. It is not fair to do it at midnight when I am not here to defend my party.
I am proud today that with 19 members of Parliament, I believe we have made a difference. I compliment my colleagues from the ruling party, the Liberal Party, for listening to our legitimate concerns and the legitimate concerns of Canadians and accommodating through consultation some of those spending measures.
It should be noted as well that there was another inaccuracy that I want to correct. Some people said that the NDP came in and negotiated an end to the tax cuts that were in the original budget. That is not accurate. We negotiated an end to the corporate tax cuts. Small business and medium size business will still get the original tax cuts that were contemplated in the original budget.
We believed that because there had been four successive cuts in a row to the corporate tax rate, it was time to balance things out a little bit and spend a little bit of our taxpayers' dollars on taxpayers. Not all money has to be shovelled dutifully to Bay Street. It is not written or carved in stone anywhere on the threshold of this place. Sometimes we are allowed to spend some of our surplus tax dollars on the needs of individual taxpayers. What is wrong with that concept?
I cannot understand the party that used to call itself the great grassroots party not standing up for the interests of grassroots Canadians who would enjoy a little bit of relief in terms of tuition for their children going to university, and who would thank the House of Commons.