Mr. Speaker, I speak out against what the hon. member opposite said about duplication being the provinces' fault. It has been more than 50 years since he attended high school and he needs a refresher course.
I wonder if the sharing of constitutional jurisdiction has any meaning for him. Originally, four provinces agreed to share certain powers, but never ever did they think that they would give up their own powers which belonged to them and which they needed for their own development within the Canadian Confederation. So there is something wrong with that.
If there is duplication, it is because the federal government has always been meddling. The provinces did not middle in the national defence of Canada, the provinces did not meddle in foreign trade. It is downright wrong. We have been hearing that since this morning, so we should set the record straight.
As for job creation, 99 per cent of Canadian businesses have fewer than four employees. There are 1,114,000 self-employed people who work for their own business; that is not a lot. They play with figures to suggest that taxes for those people will be reduced from 28 to 12 per cent, when in reality their tax rate is 12 per cent. Those people have an awful time making ends meet.
Does the minister know that while he was telling us such nonsense, the national debt is costing us $75,000 a minute, and for the four or five minutes he took to tell us such rubbish, we are some $275,000 worse off than when he started to speak? He should be aware of that.