Mr. Speaker, it is not even comparable to compare what the government of 1993 inherited to the government of today. There is no question that there was a reduction in the transfer payments, for example, for health to the provinces. If there had not been, we would not have a public health system today. We would have been bankrupt as a nation.
What the Liberal Party did saved the social infrastructure of Canada. I was not in the caucus at that point in time, but I suspect that they were saying “these are tough cuts, but we've got to do them”. I know that. I was not at that caucus table, but I was at a caucus table in Nova Scotia. My father inherited Conservative deficits as well in 1993 and he had to make changes, changes that he never thought he got into government to do, but he did what he thought was right.
While we were able to invest in the social infrastructure of Canada, we introduced things such as the child tax credit. People attribute the child tax credit to keeping child poverty below where it is. Should it be lower? We would love it to be lower. We are now in a position to make it lower. We now have money in this country to invest in kids and the government is not doing it. That is a shame.