Mr. Speaker, in the hon. member's preamble he began to discuss the importance of productivity. He noted that it was not elaborated on in the throne speech in quite the way he wanted. Partially that is because this is a focused government that will state what it will do, get its accomplishments and move on rather than making grandiose statements and not actually fulfilling them.
Having been a member of the industry committee in the previous Parliament, I will make note of things we could have done and things that I as the member for Saskatoon—Humboldt will be lobbying for to be put on the public agenda to help increase productivity.
I will note specifically the implementation of smart regulations. While the previous government made remarks, had reports and made some grandiose noise, it never actually got around to accomplishing anything. That is one of the areas where I think this government will be doing, through committees and other elements, not just its five priorities, but it will be moving things forward on productivity.
The hon. member has concerns about sliding back into a recession and having difficulties. I think he would agree with me that one of the great successes of the last couple of decades has been monetary policy. Not just in Canada but across North America, Australia and Europe, we have gone away from a world view of a more Keynesian, loose money type of concept to a much more solid, fiscally responsible monetary policy. Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister of Great Britain in 1979, was probably the politician who most brought it forward. Ludwig Erhard and some of the early German post-war finance ministers also held to that position.
I point out to the hon. member that if the interest rates had not declined and had been at the same rates as they were in the Mulroney era in the following government's era, there would still be a deficit and the government would not have balanced the budget once. In essence, the reason we had this good prosperity is largely due to proper monetary policy, and the previous government's fiscal policy was irrelevant.