Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what the member for Guelph-Wellington said about the reform of social security in Canada.
Last weekend, I spent several hours meeting groups of my constituents in Frontenac and when they were told that the country is on the brink of bankruptcy, with an accumulated deficit of $550 billion, some of them reminded us that this monstrous debt was created not by the Conservatives but by the Liberals, a government to which the present Prime Minister has belonged practically since his youth.
Remember that this $550-billion debt was not created overnight. The deficits began to pile up in the early 1970s, in the Trudeau era, and now a real climate of fear is being created throughout the land; people are almost made to feel guilty for collecting an allowance for their children or an old age pension or a welfare cheque. Some feel guilty, as though they were cheating the country, but they are not.
Most of these social measures were brought in by a Liberal government and now it will cost a fortune in advertising and cross-Canada tours to try to make the electorate swallow the pill. I asked my constituents on the weekend what they proposed to reduce this famous deficit. Since it was in the news, they said why not cut the $2 million for the Robin Hood, William Tell and Top Gun exercises.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, you will tell me that $2 million is a drop in the bucket. Yes, a little snow does not stop a locomotive, but billions and billions of flakes of snow will stop the whole train. You see, $2 million are being spent so that some sixty of our soldiers can go and have fun in Florida.
Two weeks ago, we were told that $2 million a year were spent on the restaurant here on the sixth floor while senators and MPs invited their constituents and friends for lunch and forgot to pay before leaving. Two million a year; it is a real disgrace! It is really shameful, and then we hear that politicians are unpopular. With things like that, the voters in Frontenac are right to question politicians' good will.
I wonder if the member for Guelph-Wellington could give us her opinion, her own, not her government's which I already know, but her own opinion on tax shelters or family trusts which contain billions of dollars that could be collected from wealthy individuals.