Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his recognition of the hard work done by the members of that government. I would like to say, and perhaps I have mentioned this before, that Ontario was in the midst of a recession that gripped the entire world. Interestingly enough, every time we tried to put in a remedy, the federal government, whether it was the Mulroney Conservatives or the Chrétien Liberals, found a way to undermine our efforts.
The record of that government in terms of poverty was quite significant. I remember those days. Despite the fact that there had been an affordable housing policy in place under the Liberals, very little had been done. We built 50,000 units of co-op and non-profit housing. That went a long way in terms of dealing with homelessness and the crisis families were facing.
We were a government that said no, we are not going to allow corporations to deduct lunch money at the taxpayers' expense. We said we were going to end that, but we would make sure that social assistance rates kept up with inflation and we would invest in education, both in post-secondary education and in primary education.