Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member. I was amused. I appreciated the spelling. That was wonderful, but I think the Hansard people do quite well.
Let us remember another party that was here recently. It had a majority of approximately 170 as well and we know where it ended up. Let us remember you can go from great heights to great depths here. If we are going to brag about how we have done, the increase in this party was not half bad either going from one member to 52. Mathematics is not my strongest point but our percentage increase was pretty marvellous.
Nonetheless, let us get on to more serious things rather than spelling particular words and meandering and diatribing, if I can make that a verb.
The hon. member talked about compassion and responsibility. We agree with that on this side of the House. What we need to
realize is the best thing we could do is to show and exercise compassion to the people in this country who truly need it.
I appreciate the hon. member's comments about women's shelters and transition homes. They are necessary. The only way we will be able to preserve those and to make sure that medicare stays strong and solid in this country is to get a grasp on the deficit. That will make sure those programs remain strong. We cannot just continue to spend our way into oblivion and then say we are committing ourselves 100 per cent to this. The debt will destroy it. My friend knows this. The debt will destroy those programs faster than anything else.
Let me talk about the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. As a woman I may have more right or responsibility or whatever than my friend from Skeena to say I believe that many of these groups which are funded by government should be funded by the people who believe they exist for a particular reason. They are the ones who should be looking after them. Let us make sure we are not always coming to government begging for money to perform the tasks we think are important. If I believe groups are worthwhile, I will fund them.
The most responsible and compassionate thing government could do would be to eliminate and lower tax loads and frustration levels for people in this country who are feeling totally overburdened. As a citizen I should be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I should be able to relieve my tax burden so that I can turn around and exercise compassion humanly, individually to fund some of those groups I think are important.
I would like the hon. member to prove to us that raising debt loads, raising deficits and raising taxation levels in this country are compassionate.
How is the government ever going to be able to exercise true compassion by spending the legacy of the children she talks about? What about the legacy to our children? To whom are we leaving this exorbitant debt? You cannot go on one side and then the other. The hon. member talks about the legacy of children. What about the legacy this government is leaving to children, which is the enormous debt that it will never pay off?