Mr. Speaker, I just love that our Liberal colleagues across the way seem to have a memory of only 13 years.
When I became involved in farming back in 1982 at the tender age of 17 and took out my first loans, the government of the day was Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Liberals. If I recall, my interest rate at that time was 24%. That government was driving the country into the ground. We had huge deficits in place and the national debt just ballooned under the Trudeau Liberals. We had eight years as a government, during the nineties, to start to turn the page. When paying 20% and inheriting the huge debt and the bad management of the Trudeau Liberals, we never had a chance to really get after the debt. However we were able to start the right initiatives and put in place the right programs that put the country back on the right track.
I love the analogy. We had two people by the names of Michael Wilson and Don Manzankowski who went out and planted a beautiful garden and the Liberals just came along and picked all the flowers. Sure, the country is in good fiscal shape but it is in good fiscal shape because of the initiatives that were started by the government from 1984 to 1993. The first time I was able to vote was in 1984 for the Conservatives, to give the Liberals the boot and bring in some good government. I am glad to be standing here as a Conservative and glad that we will be inheriting an economy that is robust but one that we will continue to keep on the right track.