Mr. Speaker, the member talks utter nonsense. The problem with the NDP members is that they know nothing about the economy, balancing budgets and fiscal responsibility, which is one reason they never have been nor will they ever be the government.
The fact is that when the Liberal government assumed power in 1993 it inherited a $42 billion deficit. Had we inherited power from an NDP government it probably would have been an $82 billion deficit. Of course the NDP never was and never will be the government.
Yes, the government of the day, to correct the huge deficit left by the Tory government and which was leading us, according to the Wall Street Journal, into third world status, had to take serious measures, and that was the hallmark of a responsible government. However, once we balanced the books we invested in people and, in the more recent times, in the expenditure review committee. I can tell the House, because I was directly involved, that we did apply a gender lens, a fairness lens and a regional lens. The NDP would not understand this but this was responsible government reallocating taxpayer money from the lower priorities to the higher priorities in a manner that did not hurt the most vulnerable in Canadian society.