Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the Speech from the Throne. Before I commence, I would like to state that I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg South Centre.
Before I get into my remarks, I want to take this opportunity, like all members have after this most recent election, to thank some people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my family, starting with my wife and my children, my sons, Paul and Daniel, my daughter, Irene, my son-in-law, Tony and our little grandson, George, who came together as a team. I would also like to thank my riding association executive and all the many volunteers and supporters of this most recent campaign. As well, I give a big thanks to the residents of Scarborough Centre who, in their wisdom, once again chose to give me the opportunity to have the honour and the privilege to represent them here in the 39th Parliament for the fifth consecutive time.
I read the throne speech over very carefully and I listened to remarks from other members throughout the past couple of days. I chose to take excerpts of some of the comments and I will comment on those.
The Speech from the Throne has been described as a pamphlet. I heard somebody this morning call it blue light. In one of the paragraphs it states:
Through hard work, foresight and good fortune, we have come together to make our vast country one of the most successful the world has ever seen.
That is so true. By making that statement, the Conservatives admit that this is one of the most successful countries. We did not simply get there by saying “Here we are. We are the most successful country”. The right type of investments had to be made. The right type of decisions, and tough decisions, had to be made.
In order for the Conservatives to make that statement today, we must go back to 1993 and before 1993 when the Conservative government was in office, prior to the Liberal government assuming office in 1993. The Conservatives say in their statement that we are the most successful country today. You, Mr. Speaker, were here at that time as were other members. They know very well that this beautiful country of ours was described as a banana republic. It was literally bankrupt. The statement could not have been made at that time.
However, the Conservatives are in a position today to make that statement, and I am very pleased it is being made. It is reflective of some of the decisions, some of the initiatives that were brought forward over the past four mandates.
It is proper to acknowledge the hard work of many of the members, led by the two previous prime ministers and so many cabinet ministers who, along with caucus, were able to consult with Canadians and bring forth forward thinking ideas.
Along the way, were there some mistakes? Very much so. As one of the members of the Conservative Party clearly stated so eloquently yesterday, we do not live in a perfect world, and I agree with him. It further states in the pamphlet:
The distance we have travelled is remarkable. A country once perceived to be at the edge of the world is now at the leading edge of science, business, the arts and sports.
Again, I agree with that, but we could not have got on the podium in Turin if proper investments by the previous government had not been made. We would not have been on the leading edge in science, business and art if the right type of investments had not been made.
We must remind Canadians that the present government just took over. The many successes that are outlined were investments that were made in previous years. I thank the government again for acknowledging the success of the previous government.
The Speech from the Throne goes on to say, “The Government is proud of what Canadians have accomplished so far”. I thank the Prime Minister and his newly elected minority government for acknowledging the many accomplishments and for being proud of those accomplishments. Let me remind them of some of the accomplishments, which I took the opportunity to explain to Canadians during the election.
When we inherited the government from the Conservatives, we had a national debt of just over $600 billion. Today, not only have the Conservatives inherited a country awash with surpluses, but the debt is down by almost $60 billion to $499 billion. We inherited a deficit of over $42.3 billion and we eliminated it many years ago in 1997, if I recall.
In this country, we had never heard of surpluses like those we have had in the past several years, surpluses averaging $8 billion or $9 billion year after year, which we invested in the sciences, business, arts, sports et cetera, as the Conservatives have acknowledged that we did successfully. That is where the investments went.
I remind the party opposite, the minority government, that back then we had an unemployment rate of almost 11.5%. Most recently, before the election, it was at 6.4%.
We supported small business enterprise because, as was stated earlier, we also believed then that it is one of the main engines that drives the economy. That is why well over three million jobs were created.
Our debt to GDP ratio, which is so significant, had dropped dramatically to almost 38% from a high of 68.4%. What does that mean? It means that in terms of interest we were saving an average of $3 billion a year. The Liberal government took that money and invested it back into the country. We invested it back into the programs that Canadians asked us to invest in.
I stand here proudly to say that every budget we brought forward was a budget that was a result of consultations with Canadians. We used a balanced approach. We also knew we could not satisfy everybody. At the end of the day, the country became what the party across describes in the brochure as the best country and the number one country in the world.
I will go on referring to their pamphlet, which states, “This Government has been given a mandate to lead the change demanded by the Canadian people”. Does the government's mandate reflect the fact that two out of three Canadians did not vote for that party? I emphasize the fact that two out of three Canadians did not vote for that party. Had it not been for the dynamics of how the parties are split, with the beautiful province of Quebec and so on, I think things might have been different.
Today's Prime Minister gained some political capital along the way in the campaign. He made statements about the Prime Minister's “new way”. He talked about honesty and integrity. He talked about doing government differently. Where have we heard that? Back in 1993 we heard almost exactly the same phrase. “We came here to do government differently,” said the then Reform Party led by Preston Manning.