I had an opportunity to say to them: "Who's paying you to come here?" I found that the government was financing not only their way here but the studies they were undertaking. One group had $40,000 for the brief that it came to the committee with.
We as individuals are paying not only for their trips but the briefs. Surely interested Canadians do not need $40,000 to tell the minister that there are specific things that they want him to conduct in social program review.
When I was an intern I once went mountaineering. Your pages, Mr. Speaker, are still young enough to be mountaineers. Let me tell a mountaineering story. I wanted to climb Mount Assiniboine, 11,870 feet, one of the really high peaks in the Rockies, a famous peak. It looks like the Matterhorn. It is a significant height to get to. I had a big back pack. I went with one of my buddies.
As we got into Assiniboia we met up with a fellow from California, a powerful looking young man with all the fancy equipment. I have never seen more mountaineering equipment in my life. It was the most modern, the best. He had ropes that were beyond our means. We had pretty inexpensive ropes and all our climbing equipment was used, tattered I suppose you would say.
We were going to climb Assiniboine and he asked to join us. Well, a pretty impressive group, but mountaineering is somewhat dangerous. We asked what his experience was. He had climbed all over, almost everywhere. He had climbed this peak, that peak, and had all this equipment so we said he should join us. He did.
We climbed early in the morning. You have to cross underneath the glacier in this particular spot. If you cross early enough in the morning the sun does not melt the ice and snow and there is very little risk. We crossed underneath the glacier at three in the morning, before the sun was up. We got to the place where the climb started to get a little bit risky, so we roped up. My buddy was on one end of the rope, the stranger in the middle, and myself on the end. We started to climb one at a time. The rope was simply for security.
We reached a point where there was a gravel slope with a very steep cliff at the end. The young man in the middle fell. He skidded down the gravel slope and went over the cliff. Of course the rope was designed so that we could arrest him. As I tried to get good footing, I also skidded down on the gravel, lost my footing completely and I was going over the cliff. This was 1,500 feet straight down. Gonzo, over the cliff. Luckily, because he was higher up on a better more secure spot, my buddy was able to arrest us both.
What lesson do I bring from this mountaineering story on Assiniboine to the pages? There is a huge risk in our society and the risk is that we will ignore our debt. The debt is going to pull us over the cliff and there will be no arresting us if we go over. The social programs will be gone if we go over that cliff.
We talk about review of the social programs. Forget the social programs if we go over the cliff of the debt. There are ample examples of this in other countries, New Zealand being the best one. The field I am so keen on is health care. I look at what happened to their health care system when they slammed into the debt wall. They went from a socialized health care system to one where every single visit to the doctor costs. Cough up, shell out. Do we want that in Canada? Do we need that in Canada? We do not. Social program review is necessary. Social program review is mandatory. You pages should have a part in social program review. I ask you, I beg you, I implore you to be involved. Speak up. Tell my generation what matters to you in social program review and, to the pages, thank you for listening to me.