Mr. Speaker, now that my name has been mentioned I feel I should stand up and say something.
I do appreciate the hon. member's comments. I realize what a huge geographic area he has to represent. He is quite right when he states that we did sit together for some months or even years I think at the beginning of the last Parliament, and I did appreciate that.
I want to address a couple of things which he talked about. We in the Reform Party caucus said that we have one or two areas that we want to cut. Let me make it very plain that we would only start with one or two areas. There are dozens and dozens of areas in all of these main estimates that need to be cut; not just that it is a good idea, but it is absolutely necessary. Only then will forestry, mines and all these other things be able to take first place, as they should.
However, if there is no money left in the federal coffers then there is going to be nothing to help out any sort of social programs that the member needs in his area. We know that there are certain things absolutely necessary there.
If we focus on one part of the red book and not on the other part of the red book in which he refers to and the Liberals always refer to the fact that we need to cut spending to make sure that there is money available, we are not just talking about one or two areas that we need to cut but dozens and dozens in order to save those social nets and in order to make sure that programs and policies in his constituency are going to go ahead.
With the debt rate going up at an incredible rate of thousands and thousands of dollars every minute that will do more to harm any social programs or any forestry or mines or infrastructure programs that are going on his riding. Perhaps he could respond to that.