Mr. Speaker, first of all I should correct the impression the member gave in his question. I appreciate the member's question.
I was trying to make the point particularly for Bloc members because I have studied their speeches, that there is no way any government is going to get the deficit or debt under control without doing something about social spending. This was simply my point. The reason is that 55 per cent of program spending is in this area.
The Bloc often talks as if the deficit could be brought under control by cutting administrative fat from the government. My point was that the entire government operations sections could be cut from the budget and still we would be only halfway toward controlling the deficit. I am trying to make the point that it is of necessity and not particularly because we want it.
My second point is if social spending has to be reduced, the way to do it is to target spending to those who are most in need. In other words reduce the entitlements for people above a certain income level. This is where we could have a great dispute.
When we get together with Department of Finance officials, there are conflicting figures on how much social assistance, how much unemployment insurance, and how much OAS is going to families above the national household average. Some economists say it is up to $20 billion and some say it is far less. We have to hash that out.
Our point is that spending should be targeted to those in the lower income areas. We say that in virtually every social spending envelope. Significant amounts of dollars can be saved by doing it.