Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in the House-I believe to a question from the same member last week-I am certainly prepared to suggest to my provincial counterparts that the deficit and debt reduction be an important item for discussion at the forthcoming finance ministers' conference.
However, I would like to remind the hon. member opposite that when we made the deficit projections for the year just ended we set out a target of $44 to $46 billion, a very unfortunate and very high target. That was based on a continuation in January, February and March of the unfortunate figures that the nation suffered in terms of employment and growth in the months of October, November and December of the previous year.
I am delighted to say that as a result of the very large scale job growth which is much higher than we projected that the deficit will come at the lower end of that scale. In fact it may well come in lower.
What that demonstrates is that while cutting government spending is certainly a very important objective of the government and is an essential part of deficit reduction, what it also demonstrates is that getting Canadians back to work is the most important thing we can do.