Mr. Speaker, I offer my congratulations to the hon. member for Oxford on his maiden speech in the House. We are delighted to hear about the many facets of his riding and I can see that he has much to talk about.
On the budget, about which he did not have too much to say, he seemed to emphasize the fact that he was proud of his government's attempts to broaden the tax base and close the loopholes and perhaps raise taxes and so on.
I was wondering if he would agree with the previous speaker with whom I took issue who said he thought that we did not have a spending crisis in this country but that we had a revenue crisis in this country.
The hon. member seems to think that we should be raising more taxes. Again, I ask him the same question I asked the previous speaker. Does he think that while Canadians are groaning under the massive weight of taxes in this country, and while we are $500 billion in debt, we should not look at cutting spending and cutting that spending dramatically rather than trying to squeeze another dollar out of the Canadian taxpayer?