Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for Madawaska-Victoria's speech on Bill C-99 which of course was a Liberal point of view. It was just a reiteration of what she has been told to say by the government frontbench. The things she was saying do not seem to make a lot of sense to me.
The hon. member talked about how the government supports small business. Then she went on to say that the new user fee mechanism will no longer contribute to the deficit because the program is going to be on a full cost recovery basis. The reason the government was putting it on a full cost recovery basis was its concern and desire to try to balance the budget.
I agree with the government's desire to balance the budget but typically, here we are again; the government is going to do it on the backs of private enterprise. The Liberals are going to charge the businesses that borrow money under this act an excess premium on the interest rate. This money will be put into the government coffers and will be channelled through a bureaucratic system to reimburse the lenders that make the bad decisions and lend to small businesses that cannot under whatever circumstances repay the loan. If the Liberals are concerned about supporting small business, why are they doing that?
Some private sector businesses are going to reimburse the losses of other businesses. It will not cost the government one single nickel under this process, yet the hon. member says that the government supports small business. There are two contrary situations here. I would like to hear what the member has to say.