Madam Speaker, the question raised by the hon. member is an interesting one. We did face those questions squarely in the budget.
There are definitely spending cuts but there are also job creation programs. It was a balanced approach of both job creation and fiscal responsibility. It was done because that was the only way that one could achieve an adequate result in deficit reduction.
The Reform Party's program that simply slashes and cuts will not work because it will backfire and we will get higher unemployment. We need a combination. We need to get both the jobs to pay the taxes and an efficient government.
As far as providing targets for unemployment, that is an interesting proposal. It is very difficult to target that item. There are so many variables that enter into the unemployment numbers.
We are looking at an unemployment rate that has dropped marginally since this government took office, but it is still very high. If one adds to that the discouraged worker effects and the other effects, one will probably get an unemployment rate close to 15 per cent which is a terrible number.
The speed with which the discouraged workers return to the workforce is unknown. It is very difficult to forecast that number. Therefore we could have a sharp drop in the unemployment rate and still many discouraged workers or we could have the discouraged workers moving very quickly into the workforce and have rising unemployment even though job creation was growing at a substantial rate.
We do not have a target in that but my personal feeling is that the only acceptable target for any political party is that every Canadian looking for work should have a job available to them. That is a long way off but that is the political target.