Mr. Speaker, the member for St. Albert keeps going over this. Repetition is a great educator, so hopefully he will listen a little bit more this time.
First of all, there is nothing terribly unusual. This program has been set up in the best interests of small and medium sized businesses.
Let us look at the other side of it. What will we do if in fact the government did not try to recover this bad debt loss? What does it mean? Does it mean that we do not have a program, period? We know it has been very successful. We know that using this system has assisted many and has probably created thousands and thousands of jobs in Canada.
Maybe the member wants the government to fork out $100 million a year in loan losses. Is it the responsibility of Reform Party members to tell the Government of Canada to cut spending, get its act together, and if it wants to give away $100 million on loan losses that is fine by them?
There is nothing unusual about cost recovery programs. They happen in the business world every day. Here we have the government acting like a business, creating opportunities for small business but at no cost to the taxpayer.