Madam Speaker, I would like to say first of all that before I am a member of the Reform Party, I am a Canadian and a very proud Canadian. I hope that the budget brought down by the Minister of Finance works. This is our country and we need to work together. All of us here are Canadians and all want to be Canadians at the end of the day.
In this budget debate the Minister of National Defence has been explaining the difficult time he has had with the cuts that he has had to be responsible for. I think on balance they have been very fair. The minister is absolutely correct that these are decisions that should have been made 10 years ago. Had they been made 10 years ago, it would not have been nearly as rough today. I personally commend the minister for the good job that I think he has done in that regard.
I do have a question and it has to do with the budget forecast. The budget is relying almost exclusively on an increase in revenues. It is relying on an increase in revenues of about 15 per
cent over two years after coming from a year, last year, with a decrease of 5.6 per cent.
In my experience every time I have had trouble in my business, and most bankers would say most businesses have a problem, it is with forecasting revenues too high and expenditures too low. The expenditures are forecasted to rise just .3 per cent over this same period.
My question for the minister is this. In a period of deflation, which we are in right now-at least in my opinion we are in a time of deflation-do we have any backups to prevent a further erosion of our fiscal position if the revenues that are projected and we hope arrive do not arrive?