Mr. Speaker, I look forward to an opportunity to debate this question at great length with the member for Beaver River and other members of her party in the House.
The problem is twofold. Frankly I hear very simplistic things coming out of the Reform Party. I hear this constant noise about this being like a business; that if we are going to run it like a business and we have no money, we should cut off things, fire employees or lay people off, downsize. That is a fallacious understanding of how the economy works.
In a business you do not set the interest rate. You do not set the exchange rate. You do not set the regulatory environment. You do not have a myriad of levers to pull or buttons to push in order to affect the lives of people. That kind of analogy is just a non starter for me.
The second thing is that it is a little like trying to change wheels on a moving car. You cannot abandon everybody who sits out there, everybody who receives support and help right now while you try to move to this brave new world. You have to move through some kind of transition.
There are tremendous opportunities to create efficiencies in the current system. The problem the member references in terms of the size of the economy and the size of the debt is a very serious one. Everybody in this House acknowledges that and it is one that must be confronted. I believe there are ways to find significant resources in the social policy envelope without harming a single individual.
If we step aside from some of the antiquated ways in which we have delivered services and move into the 1990s or if we even moved into the 1980s it would be an improvement. We could find some resources. There are other ways to find resources and they are in the management of this economy. They are in putting people back to work. They are in helping to revitalize the business community. Simply stepping back from the responsibility as a government is not good enough. It does not work.