Mr. Speaker, whenever a Liberal talks about the deficits and debts of the Conservatives and how wonderful the Liberals are, I just cannot resist the temptation to get up and give the rebuttal which I believe the member should receive.
A huge ship must have its rudder moved long before the intended time of turning. The national economy is the same.
The facts are very clear. It was the years of a Liberal government with its huge borrowing and its deficits racking up a huge debt that caused this country to go into a series of deficit years in this country's budgets. It was the Conservatives who took over after the Liberals had put us on that path and yes, during the years that the Conservatives were in power, that path was not turned around. It happened three years approximately after the Conservatives were defeated. That is because the Conservatives put in place a number of measures that helped the economy to turn around and which the Liberals cashed in on. The Liberals got the credit for it.
I would simply say that we have to look at the long term when we are looking at these economic effects. The effect of one government does indeed go into the term of office of the next one.