Mr. Rae turns out to be a Liberal, so I am not surprised he had difficulty.
However, we have seen it over and over. Look at Manitoba and how many balanced budgets it has had. Look at the government of Tommy Douglas. Through the years there were balanced budgets.
In terms of the number of years, the member should look at the facts and the figures. He will find that when the NDP runs a government, by and large it has balanced budgets, unlike some other governments that have had huge debts. Look at the promises federal governments have made to children, that they would invest in them and make poverty history. We have had the Conservative government, the Liberal government and then a Conservative government again. After 18 years of promises, what has happened?
Another promise was made to lower greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2000. I remember that red book promise. Guess what? It has gone up. Why? There was no investment in anything green, not in public transit, green technology or retrofit programs. How does that help the community?
For us to have a prosperous Canada with a high productivity rate, we have to invest in things like child care and post-secondary education. How did Ireland, for example, come from not doing very well to a place where it is now dealing with child poverty? What did it do? It invested in post-secondary education and in people. We do not do that. We give big corporate tax cuts, and guess what? No wonder we lag behind in our productivity. No wonder we have trouble with our place in the world.
I understand the Liberal Party likes to make big promises. I heard a recent promise on dealing with poverty, something about 30:50 or whatever. Yet where is the money to do all that? From 2001 to 2007, we saw $53 billion in corporate tax cuts. That money should have gone to deal with poverty and to investments in communities, cities, people and families. That is what we should have done.