Madam Speaker, the old saying that Tory times are tough times could not be any truer than it is today. At that time, as my first colleague mentioned, it was not a global recession. It was a national recession, which means that it was brought about by the government of the day through bad management, and we are seeing it again. The deficit was $43 billion, youth unemployment was at 24% and mortgages were at 18%. I do not know if people remember that.
We, as a government, tightened our belt and became lean. We actually cut the things that the present government does not know how to cut. The government has bloated its spending this year during a recession.
We had to face tough choices but we knew that the most important thing was not to have a jobless recovery so we focused on jobs, jobs, jobs. In three years, we got rid of that deficit and started to pay down the debt. Canada moved from a developing country status to number one in the world in terms of economic development. We left a surplus for the present government to squander.