Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the President of the Treasury Board and I am filled with dismay. This is the President of the Treasury Board speaking, the man in charge of preparing the government's expenditure budget. That is incredible. I can see that a minister would consider that $200,000 or so is not too much to pay to go and deliver a speech, that there is no fat to cut in the federal administration, that nobody here is spending too much.
While you are at it, why produce government brochures in only fourteen colours? That is not enough. Why not twenty-two? That is incredible. I suppose that the President of the Treasury Board also considers that there is nothing wrong with building an embassy in Japan on a lot worth over $1 billion. That is normal I suppose. To have three embassies in Brussels, one for NATO, one for Belgium and one for the European Economic Community, with three ambassador's residences and three reception halls, one each, that is normal too, I suppose.
Now, he is telling us that, to solve the problem, we will refocus the activity of the federal and provincial governments. What has the government done in that area these past few years? Quite simply, the federal government has been pulling out. In that area as in health and post-secondary education, it is pulling out but keeping the tax money. That is incredible. Now the buzz word is refocussing, before that it was harmonizing.
Apparently the federal government will pull out from a number of areas, but it will continue to raise taxes, of course. That is how the federal deficit first got enormous. Then we saw the public finance crisis gradually spread to all the provinces. It is obvious that the federal government has been passing the buck to the provinces for years. As the minister just announced, instead of dealing with the problem from this end, by streamlining and restructuring the federal administration, he will keep passing the buck without making tax transfers. Is that what we are to understand?