All our friends across the way will. I will not say how many, because that would point out to the presence or absence of members. That is why I will just say "all our friends across the way", out of respect for the authority of the Chair and all parliamentarians.
Let me quote another distinguished Canadian: "This is a real budget built on real measures", said Michel Audet, the president of the Province of Quebec Chamber of Commerce.
Now let us hear more about what Canadians said about this budget. Sherry Cooper, economist at Nesbitt Burns, said it is a terrific budget, there is no smoke and mirrors. I am not quoting the Reform Party MPs here. I am quoting real, knowledgeable people. There is a difference.
Lloyd Atkinson of MT Associates: "This is one of the few budgets I have seen in a very long time where the promise was matched by the reality".
Stephen Van Houten of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association: "This is really the first serious attempt at deficit reduction we have seen in this country in a long, long time". Even Reform members could agree with that.
John Bulloch of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said the Minister of Finance has the biggest job ever and he came through. Jeff Gundy, an economist at Wood Gundy, said the minister has more than met if not exceeded market's expectation.
When does a budget get this kind or praise? Seldom if ever. This kind of praise has probably not been heard since the last time there was a Liberal government. It certainly was not heard when the Tories were in power.
Let me tell members what the budget does and what we are striving to do with the bill. We are talking about deficit reduction. We are talking about reducing our deficit to 3 per cent of GDP as we promised in the red book and to further reduce it to 1.7 per cent of GDP. We will continue in that line of progress because we as Liberals are committed to doing things right, and we will. We are committed to doing things fairly, and we will.
We are also talking about spending cuts in this budget. We made a promise and, once again, we delivered the goods. We had promised to reduce the budget through expenditure restraint and, for every dollar in new tax revenue, there will be seven in reductions in this budget. Bill C-76 seeks to implement these reductions and implement this budget the Minister of Finance has given us.
At the risk of displeasing certain hon. members opposite, I must say that this budget is very popular with the Canadian people.
Notwithstanding the immense popularity of the budget, Canadians want us to move ahead to cut the costs and save taxpayers dollars in the way we on this side of the House want to.
An amendment to the bill was just moved. It reads as follows: "That Bill C-76 not be read the second time now, but rather in six months time". According to the hon. member opposite, a budget enjoying that much popularity should not be read the second time. It makes no difference to him that Canadians want this budget passed, the Bloc member does not want it. And because he does not want this budget, he is saying: "Never mind that Canadians want this budget, they will not have it. Too bad".
This shows a lack of respect toward Canadian voters who want this budget to be implemented immediately, as the hon. member for the riding of Ontario said it so eloquently.
Canadians want this budget passed by the House.
Earlier today an official from the Department of Finance was telling me it would cost millions of dollars a week if we did not have the bill passed by the end of June. Millions of dollars a week would not be saved. Millions of dollars a week which we promised Canadians we would save would not be realized if the House does not adopt the motion today.
That is what the Bloc Quebecois is asking us to do, not to read the bill now and to do so six months hence; not to save the millions of dollars we want to save, not to have the cutbacks in expenditures we want to make and not to reduce the deficit in the way we are trying to do. That is what it wants. It does not want us to succeed. It wants us to fail.
Why does it want us to fail? I do not understand. Why would any hon. member in the House not want the budget to go ahead? I cannot understand it at all.
As for Reform Party members, they want the budget to include more cuts. As you know, they also wanted to eliminate old age pensions. You cannot trust these people. We, Liberal members, want a budget which is realistic, fair and equitable. It was not easy to draft this budget and it will not be easy to implement it either.
However, Canadians realize that this budget is fair. They are saying: "We may have to tighten our belt, but so will everyone else, including the government, the private sector and others. Since this is a joint effort for the good of our country, we are prepared to do it". So, everyone is prepared to make a sacrifice, except Bloc Quebecois members, who want to table a motion to put the Minister of Finance's budget on the back burner.
I say to the members of the Bloc: go to your ridings and ask your constituents if they oppose the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance in this House, on February 27. As I said earlier, the overwhelming majority of Canadians will tell you that this is a very good budget.
Let me give you a few statistics about the budget. Again, this is from Gallup Canada. Just listen, you will see how positive the reaction was to this budget. "In 1985-during the Mulroney years-28 per cent of Canadians felt that the budget would get the economy back on track, while 47 per cent did not think so". In other words, Canadians opposed that year's budget in a proportion of two-to-one.
Let us now go 1989, for example, when the Leader of the Opposition was a Conservative minister. In 1989, 26 per cent of Canadians felt that the budget of that year would get the economy back on track, while 53 per cent did not think so. Did the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean vote against that budget? Of course not. He supported it, even though more than half of all Canadians opposed it.
Today, 49 per cent of Canadians feel that this budget will get the economy back on track, while 38 per cent do not think so. There are a lot more Canadians everywhere who think that this budget is good. It was well-received, even in the riding of the member opposite. Yet, what does the Bloc Quebecois propose today? It proposes a motion which, again, reads: "That Bill C-76, an Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 1995, be not read a second time but that it be read a second time this day six months hence".
It seems that some members of the Bloc Quebecois feel they should support a budget if the public is against it and condemn the budget if the public supports it. Does that make sense to you, Mr. Speaker?
This is Bloc logic. They do everything in reverse. Just Bloc logic. Well, I think the hon. member should listen to what Canadians are saying, and I see there are more and more of them who seem to be interested in what is being said this afternoon. More and more people are showing an interest, not necessarily in what I am saying, but in the provisions of Bill C-76. I am willing to bet that many parliamentarians are here to find out why the motion presented by the finance critic for the Bloc Quebecois is wrong, and no doubt they are going to say why hon. member should vote with the government to obtain speedy passage of this bill.
Let the finance critic for the Bloc Quebecois rise in his seat immediately to tell me if I am wrong. Mr. Speaker, as you can see, we have yet to hear from the hon. member, as I speak. Nothing. Complete silence on the other side of the House-