Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity after this almost ranting and raving question to respond to challenges about my motives and the motives of my colleagues.
I know my friends here now very closely. They are as compassionate and concerned about the future of Canada and the welfare of individuals at least I would argue as some of the members on the other side. Obviously there is no merit in us having a dispute, an argument, over who is more compassionate. What a rational debate in government and in society should be about is how do we carry it out, how do we do it?
The reason why I have left a comfortable life as a professor, short of retirement, is because I am so worried that the future of our social programs is in jeopardy. We are very, very close to losing it all. This would not be the first industrial country of the world where this has happened.
I am more compassionate, I assert strongly to the member opposite. Let us have an argument on who is more compassionate. I am more compassionate. On top of that, I have a brain, a brain which says to me that it is not just a heart or a stomach with which I have to make policy. I have to look at the world around me. As I look around at the world I see this government predicting an extra $100 billion deficit in the next three years.
At a 6 per cent average that means $6 billion more spending just to serve the interest on the part of the debt they have created in six years. Do you know how much we can spend on social welfare with $6 billion? That does not count all the higher interest we owe on the already existing $500 billion. We are on a treadmill with the spending cuts we are making. The increases in revenue-