Mr. Speaker, first of all I am delighted to welcome the leader of the Reform Party to the debate. As the Prime Minister, myself and other ministers went across the country we missed his presence in the debate over the last couple of weeks and we are delighted to see him back.
Let me simply make a couple of points because I know the time is very short. The leader of the Reform Party talks about the necessity for jobs and in the same breath he talks about the requirements for tremendous cuts. I am sure he would recognize that even the Alberta treasurer said that as a result of his cuts the growth in Alberta was going to be cut by almost a full percentage point. I am sure he would not recommend to us as a country that wants to create jobs that we begin on the kinds of cuts that are simply going to bring the economy to its knees which is indeed the result of the kinds of recommendations that he has made.
What we have done is follow what the OECD has done, which is a far more balanced approach, one which will lead to deficit reduction at the same time as job creation.
The member opposite talks about eliminating the deficit. He talks about doing it by the end of this mandate, which is indeed his party's program, but the fact is that the deficit is now $13 billion higher than when he originally prepared that program. I would ask where would he make those cuts or what kind of growth would he get.
In his own projections he talked about growth of $16.5 billion in revenues over three years. That is based on assumptions which are simply Alice in Wonderland. I look forward to sitting down to understand how this country which was not able to grow faster than 2.4 per cent last year is going to triple its growth over the course of the years to come.
I go on. He talks about cuts in OAS. He says he would do it at a level of $54,000. An objective assessment of what the member opposite has said would in fact talk about having made those levels of cuts to people who are making lower than $20,000 to $25,000. He would cut subsidies to business by $800 million. That is $200 million more than in fact is given to business through the regional agencies and basic subsidies. His arithmetic is fundamentally wrong or his understanding of the public accounts is wrong.
He called for a 25 per cent reduction is subsidies to crown corporations. I simply ask him: What would he cut? VIA? Would he cut the CBC, eliminate it? Tell us. Do not simply give us these numbers in the air.
I go on. He says taxes. He says we should not have done on the tax side what we did. Does that mean he would keep the $100,000 capital gains tax exemption of which the previous government, according to its own studies, said there was no proper evaluation? It was not able to make one iota, one scintilla of relationship between that capital gains tax exemption and job
creation or benefit to the country. Would he keep that? We eliminated it and we are very proud that we did.
He talks about a carbon tax. He was the first person to raise the carbon tax. It is part of an ongoing study set up by the previous government which we are continuing, but he is the person who raised the carbon tax.
I must say to talk about a tax revolt in the House, a revolution against the tax of his own imagination, is somewhat specious to say the least.
Mr. Speaker, I know the time is precious, but let me simply summarize it by this. The essence of the position of the Reform Party is that what we should do at the present time is have a full review of the defence policy before any cuts are made, but that we should immediately embark upon a savage cut of all those government support programs which go to single mothers, single parents, senior citizens, widows, and children.
I simply do not understand. I do not understand a political party which says that the cold war is not over and therefore we should continue defence spending, going ahead as we have in the past, but on the other hand that we have won the war on poverty. That is simply unrealistic.