Mr. Speaker, it is good to see that the person in charge is always willing to admit an error from time to time. It is too bad the government in charge would not follow in line with that.
I had a great speech prepared tonight, but there have been so many quotes I have to address them and change everything.
The government whip talked previously about re-establishing our credibility. That was the comment he made. One wonders why the Liberal government has to re-establish its credibility rather than establish it. Could it be that this was the very government that started borrowing money on the backs of our youth in the first place and now it is back to try to re-establish credibility?
The question about why Reformers are in this House of Commons is quite obvious. The government did not quite re-establish the credibility it thought it did, and so here we are.
There was some prior discussion about tabling a list. I think one of the members opposite suggested that one of our members did not have a list. He was referring to the list of restraint measures to be reflected in future estimates, the reductions from the House of Commons budget. That was the list he was referring to. I intend to put forward an amendment to the motion based on that list. It is not as though he were coming up with something out of thin air. It is not a list this government needs; it needs a conscience. This government has to do a little soul searching on how to balance budgets.
We are asked time and time again what specific cuts could be made. We divulged a great deal of cuts during the election. Nowhere in these estimates have we see anything like reducing non-salaried items by a certain percentage, not even 2 per cent, not 3 per cent, not 10 or 12 per cent. If members look at some of the non-salaried issues in this government today it would not take very much to figure out there is some money to be saved. One wonders how hard they are looking.
I would like to get back to my old dilemma of how much we are spending to promote the official languages policy. The $650 million we have established could be anywhere from $650 million to $2 billion or $3 billion. No one is certain in this government. There are a lot of places to find cuts. It is just a matter of getting at it and doing it.
I have tried to put these reductions into the House of Commons budgets we are talking about here of about $2.4 million. By the time we put this in perspective, it is interesting that in the period of a 20-minute speech we have already spent $1,767,600 in interest on the debt. Here we are this evening debating probably ten times that amount.
Today the cost to our young people, each and every one of them, is about $26,000 per annum to pay the interest. This is transferred to the young people listening and watching tonight. It is not this party that brought this upon these next few generations. It is the government of today and that previous party from Jurassic Park, wherever it is. I am sorry, I did not mean to point to the hon. member from the NDP. They are not Jurassic Park, yet.
There was a quote a little earlier from the government whip who said that we do not want to get into this discussion on a partisan basis. Unfortunately these discussions about dollars are partisan. They are biased. Many people are very angry at politicians and government. Reformers have come to this House in part to address some of those concerns people have. We have a right to speak about these things and we intend to do so with vigour.
Just imagine for a moment in any country in the world a government which spends $160 billion a year. This factitious country overspends by $40 billion a year. In other words the money it takes in just is not enough, so it borrows to spend $40 billion a year. This government borrowing that much each year then says: "We want to get more jobs. We want to show people up front we are going to get them jobs. What will we do? We will buy them some jobs. Let us spend $2 billion more, even though we are only borrowing $40 billion. Let us borrow $2 billion more and let us go to the municipalities and get them to throw in $2 billion and why not ask the provincial government for $2 billion as well. We have $6 billion, but there is only one taxpayer. Fancy that". Here is a government borrowing on the backs of one taxpayer at three different levels of government. This is the same government which is spending $160 billion a year, of which $40 billion is borrowed.
A member opposite said a little while ago: "If this government does not lose its way". I suggest this government has started to lose its way, it is on a different path than the day it started. It is already borrowing money to show politically it can create jobs when at the end of the day what is going to happen is there will be more people unemployed and we will owe more money.