Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
The stock market index is down by 2 per cent as of noon today. At two o'clock the bank rate was raised to over 7 per cent and the long term bond rate is now almost 3 percentage points above that assumed in the budget documents.
This implies that lenders and investors continue to lose confidence in the government's ability to meet its deficit cutting projections.
Does the Prime Minister now not agree with his finance minister that further spending reductions beyond those contained in the budget are necessary to meet the government's deficit reduction targets?