Mr. Speaker, my friend from St. Boniface is at his very best when he decides to put the cat among the pigeons.
He did that so well at one point early in the election. I heard him one morning early as I was driving out to begin my campaign schedule for that particular day. It was just a week into the campaign I recall. I felt so good about what he said that I sent off to him a missile, which I am sure he will remember. I think I guaranteed I will be in his memoirs one day. It is not the first time he has put the cat among the pigeons.
I have never been shy in telling my friends in the Reform Party on what points we disagree and on what points we agree. I wanted to have a moment ago a nice positive sounding speech because I wanted to appeal to the better judgment of people like my friends from Elk Island, Surrey North and Wetaskiwin and so on. I wanted to appeal to their better judgment that whatever the partisan differences here, this bill is a good bill.
Now that my friend has put the cat among the pigeons, now that he has called my bluff as it were, I have to say directly what I said by inference. Those who think that you can put job creation aside until we solve the deficit problem are smoking something different than I am smoking. They are dreaming in Technicolor. You cannot put the country on hold. You cannot say to those people, as the former Prime Minister, the lady from Vancouver Centre at the time, said in the opening gaff of her campaign last October: "We're going to wait until the year 2000 to deal with job creation". You remember that famous statement. We cannot do that.
I say to my friends in the Reform Party and to the Bloc and any people in this party who happen to be of that particular view that we cannot, as a government, as a group of people's representative, say to people: "Put your aspirations on hold, run up your grocery bill for 10 years until we get the deficit under control".
By the same token we cannot say: "Let's have all jobs, jobs, jobs and ignore the deficit". That is why I have said there has to be a balanced approach. Often I hear the simplistic rhetoric that says: "What are you doing about the deficit today?" The answer is: "About the same as we are doing about the job creation today". We are doing it hand in hand. The day you find us doing more about the deficit than job creation, more about the deficit
than the social security net, is a day you have the formula out of balance.
To answer my friend from St. Boniface, if I disagree with some of the people in the Reform Party, since he mentioned them, it is on that question of balance. I know the member does not want to hear this, but he is going to hear it anyway, and I am going to do it very quickly because my time is up. I say to them, if you talk to them as really free voters rather than as part of a monolithic host which they like to pretend sometimes, you will find that in their heart of hearts-yes, they all have hearts, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that-they really like those people, those Canadians, to have some work. They are not really as Scrooge-like as they sound from time to time.