Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the point that the debater makes. I too share his concerns with government spending. I share his concerns with making sure that government programs fall on those who are most in need.
I would like to ask him if he is familiar with a little bit of history called the depression of the 1930s in which the economy settled in to a long and profound period of contraction, serious unemployment and serious poverty. The great thinker John Maynard Keynes pointed out that this equilibrium had huge numbers of people suffering through no fault of their own, much like the recessions that we have had since and that it required government spending to increase aggregate demand and thereby increase employment numbers.
If we were to cut spending the way the Reform Party has said we should, balance the budget within three years, would that not make a bad situation worse by cutting aggregate demand and increasing unemployment and increasing poverty and thereby making the situation much more difficult than it is already?