Mr. Speaker, our federal debt is $535 billion and growing. Our total debt, federal and provincial, now exceeds 90 per cent of our gross domestic product and our foreign debt is 44 per cent of our gross domestic product. That is worse than any other leading industrialized country.
Yet we find that the supplementary estimates will show that we are going to spend $527 million to help other countries reduce their debts. My question to the Minister of Finance is: Can he please justify this expenditure to Canadians when he is telling them they must accept cuts or tax increases because we are so heavily in debt?