Mr. Speaker, the minister said a number of things in reference to the budget which I would like to address. I know that you are going to limit my time in making those remarks so I will limit myself to two points.
The first point is the deficit. The minister mentioned that cutting the deficit would impose costs on the population of Canada. Unquestionably that is true. He also implied that more severe cuts than the present government has made would really impose undue hardships.
Has the minister considered the other cost, the cost of not having taken sufficient measures to cut the deficit? This government has admitted that over the next three years $100 billion will be added to our deficit. Even at a nominal rate of interest of 8 per cent that means that the interest on that additional money will be $8 billion. There is no question that has to come from the taxpayers of Canada. I suspect that it will entail extra taxes.
The minister also mentioned small business and the reluctance of banking institutions to loan them money so they can improve their business. I agree with that, but we too did a survey of small business during the election campaign and prior to it. What they kept telling us was that the best thing that government could do for small business was to reduce taxes and reduce the bureaucracy: "Get out of my pockets and get off my back". They said that if the government does that they can make a prosperous business work. It will get the economy going, people will have more money, they will spend it more and our businesses will flourish.
Has the minister considered the effects that this minimal intrusion into the deficit is going to have downstream because we will now be $600 billion in debt? We are going to have to borrow that money because even then, if we achieve the 3 per cent of the GDP which the government aspires to, we are still going to be borrowing $25 billion in that final year.
Has the minister considered whether this is really the best way to go?