Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have been named so often in the member's address. I will summarize what I as an economist consider the argument against the bill to be.
One view we have heard again and again in today's speeches is that CMHC is self-supporting, that it does not really cost anything. Economists are asking why the government is in the business if this is so. Are members opposite suggesting that the free market will not work, that the free market does not produce services more efficiently than the public sector? The evidence is strongly against that because throughout the world, governments are privatizing and taking these kinds of activities out of the market.
Strangely enough, other members are bragging about the fact that the CMHC system is providing subsidies to others so that they can have houses that otherwise they would not have. How is this possible? If the organization is breaking even, where does it get its resources with which to pay the subsidies? It is conceivable that some activities undertaken by CMHC are creating a surplus. Thus a surplus is being forced or squeezed out of some unsuspecting Canadians participating in CMHC. It is taken by the system to subsidize others.
As a conservative I would suggest that is not the way we should run our society. If there are reasons for subsidizing some types of housing such as that for natives, I believe we could reach agreement on it. Let us make it obvious. Let us make it transparent. Let us not have it hidden in the operation of some huge bureaucracy or in some obscure book.
Another point made by the hon. member was that the housing industry would collapse unless the insurance was there. Whenever we have a subsidy program the economy and the industry adjust to take advantage of it. If we take away the subsidy there is a reduction in output. If subsidies are offered to banks or to anyone they will take them. That is not an argument in favour of saying that we need it.