Madam Speaker, I do not know if the member came in late, if he was not listening, if he was too busy talking to his colleagues over in the corner or if he has not read the estimates that he is now preparing to vote on later this evening. Had he and had he been listening since he walked into this House in January he would have seen our government tackling virtually every one of the issues he just mentioned and many more.
We are not looking at saving money by the millions. We have looked at saving money by the billions. The member really should know that if he has been paying attention. I do not know if he is attempting to mislead people. He knows very well that the matter of MPs' pensions is in the hands of a commission established specifically by law after every election for that purpose and that report will be coming back and we will be taking action on that report.
He also knows perfectly well that I said very clearly that the finance minister in tabling his budget said this is a two-stage budget. This is step one. We have done more cutting in this budget than in previous budgets. We have also closed some tax loopholes and he knows that very well. We paid attention to that side of the ledger as well by making sure that there is some increase in revenue and that tax breaks that certain people were getting are no longer there. However, we have done five times more in cutting expenses than we have increasing revenues through closing those tax loopholes.
The member knows perfectly well that these estimates on which he is voting today represent billions of dollars of cuts in government expenditures. I think he should be saying that honestly to the Canadians who are listening to us tonight.